4.5 Article

Association between adverse childhood experiences and brain volumes among Japanese community-dwelling older people: Findings from the NEIGE study

Journal

CHILD ABUSE & NEGLECT
Volume 124, Issue -, Pages -

Publisher

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2021.105456

Keywords

Childhood maltreatment; Childhood deprivation and threat; Brain morphology; Structural magnetic resonance imaging

Funding

  1. JSPS KAKENHI [16H03249, 17K19794, 18K10829, 19H03910, 19H04879]
  2. Pfizer Health Research Foundation
  3. Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Japan
  4. Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [19H04879, 17K19794, 18K10829, 19H03910] Funding Source: KAKEN

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The study found an association between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and brain volumes among older individuals, particularly in brain regions responsible for emotion and self-regulation such as the anterior cingulate cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala.
Background: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can affect later-life health outcomes via brain structural differences. However, there is no sufficient empirical evidence about whether brain morphological differences remain until old ages.Objective: We examined the association between ACEs and brain volumes among older individuals.Participants and setting: Residents aged 65-84 years in Tokamachi City, Japan, were randomly recruited, and 491 participants were included in the analysis.Methods: ACEs were assessed with a self-reported questionnaire. The volumes of seven brain regions of interests were evaluated via structural magnetic resonance imaging.Results: In total, 143 (27.1%) participants experienced one ACE and 33 (6.7%) two or more ACEs. Participants with two or more ACEs had a larger anterior cingulate cortex volume (B = 0.346, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.04 to 0.66) and smaller hippocampal (B = -0.287, 95% CI = -0.58 to 0.001) and amygdala (B = -0.313, 95% CI = -0.59 to -0.03) volumes. Interestingly, we observed a distinct association between deprivation and threat. That is, deprivation was associated with a smaller amygdala volume (B = -0.164, 95% CI = -0.32 to -0.01) and threat with a larger anterior cingulate cortex volume (B = 0.401, 95% CI = 0.11 to 0.70).Conclusions: ACEs were associated with the volumes of brain regions such as anterior cingulate cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala, which are responsible for emotion and self-regulation in older population. The effect of ACEs on the amygdala was commonly driven by deprivation experiences and that on the anterior cingulate cortex by threat.

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