Autobiographical memory: a candidate latent vulnerability mechanism for psychiatric disorder following childhood maltreatment

Abstract

BackgroundAltered autobiographical memory (ABM) functioning has been implicated in the pathogenesis of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and may represent one mechanism by which childhood maltreatment elevates psychiatric risk.AimsTo investigate the impact of childhood maltreatment on ABM functioning.MethodThirty-four children with documented maltreatment and 33 matched controls recalled specific ABMs in response to emotionally valenced cue words during functional magnetic resonance imaging.ResultsChildren with maltreatment experience showed reduced hippocampal and increased middle temporal and parahippocampal activation during positive ABM recall compared with peers. During negative ABM recall they exhibited increased amygdala activation, and greater amygdala connectivity with the salience network.ConclusionsChildhood maltreatment is associated with altered ABM functioning, specifically reduced activation in areas encoding specification of positive memories, and greater activation of the salience network for negative memories. This pattern may confer latent vulnerability to future depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Fig. 1

Group differences in haemodynamic activity during autobiographical memory (ABM) recall in response to positive v. negative cues. (a) whole-brain group analyses showing significantly reduced activation in the maltreated group relative to the non-maltreated group (controls) in response to the positive ABM recall v. negative ABM recall in the right hippocampus (blue) and (b) higher activation in the middle temporal gyrus (MTG; red), (c) Regions of interest analyses showing greater right amygdala activation (green) in response to negative ABM recall v. positive ABM recall (family-wise error-corrected), whole brain results were corrected at P = 0.005, cluster extent (ke) = 75 and parameter estimates represent differences in activation between positive and negative ABM recall. Error bars indicate one standard error of the mean (SEM).