@article{ref1,
title="Are all threats equal? Associations of childhood exposure to physical attack versus threatened violence with preadolescent brain structure",
journal="Developmental cognitive neuroscience",
year="2021",
author="Delaney, Scott W. and Cortes Hidalgo, Andrea P. and White, Tonya and Haneuse, Sebastien and Ressler, Kerry J. and Tiemeier, Henning and Kubzansky, Laura D.",
volume="52",
number="",
pages="e101033-e101033",
abstract="BACKGROUND: Neurodevelopmental studies of childhood adversity often define threatening experiences as those involving harm or the threat of harm. Whether effects differ between experiences involving harm (&quot;physical attack&quot;) versus the threat of harm alone (&quot;threatened violence&quot;) remains underexplored. We hypothesized that while both types of experiences would be associated with smaller preadolescent global and corticolimbic brain volumes, associations with physical attack would be greater. <br><br>METHODS: Generation R Study researchers (the Netherlands) acquired T1-weighted scans from 2905 preadolescent children, computed brain volumes using FreeSurfer, and asked mothers whether their children ever experienced physical attack (n = 202) or threatened violence (n = 335). Using standardized global (cortical, subcortical, white matter) and corticolimbic (amygdala, hippocampus, anterior cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex) volumes, we fit confounder-adjusted models. <br><br>RESULTS: Physical attack was associated with smaller global volumes (β(cortical)=-0.14; 95% CI: -0.26, -0.02); β(white matter)= -0.16; 95% CI: - 0.28, - 0.03) and possibly some corticolimbic volumes, e.g., β(amygdala/ICV-adjusted)= -0.10 (95% CI: -0.21, 0.01). We found no evidence of associations between threatened violence and smaller volumes in any outcome; instead, such estimates were small, highly uncertain, and positive in direction. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Experiences of physical attack and threatened violence may have quantitively different neurodevelopmental effects. Thus, differences between types of threatening experiences may be neurodevelopmentally salient.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1878-9293",
doi="10.1016/j.dcn.2021.101033",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2021.101033"
}