Citation

Hallowell ES, Oshri A, Liebel SW, Liu S, Duda B, Clark US, Sweet LH. Child Maltreat. 2019; ePub(ePub): 1077559519835975.

Affiliation

1 Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1077559519835975

PMID

30917694

Abstract

Child maltreatment is associated with a variety of risk behaviors in young adulthood; however, the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms of this relation are not well understood. The primary aim of the present study was to examine the direct and indirect effects between maltreatment in childhood and downstream impulsivity via neural activity during a cognitive task. In a sample of emerging adult women from the rural southeastern United States, childhood abuse and neglect were assessed using the childhood trauma questionnaire. Outcome measures of neural activity during a functional magnetic resonance imaging N-back verbal working memory (WM) task and trait impulsivity on the Impulsive Behavior Scale were assessed approximately 1 year later.

RESULTS indicate that adults with higher levels of reported childhood maltreatment demonstrate worse behavioral performance and lower neural response during a difficult verbal WM task. Furthermore, neural activity significantly mediated the relation between abuse and neglect in childhood and trait impulsivity. These new findings demonstrate an association between neurocognitive functioning and reported childhood abuse and neglect, and indicate that such changes may underlie the relation between maltreatment and trait-level impulsivity.

Language: en

Keywords

child abuse; child maltreatment; cognitive development; memory; neurocognition