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. 2021 Jun:49:100963.
doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2021.100963. Epub 2021 May 15.

Reward-related neural correlates of early life stress in school-aged children

Nicholas M Morelli  1 , Michael T Liuzzi  2 , Jacqueline B Duong  3 , Maria Kryza-Lacombe  4 , Emma Chad-Friedman  5 , Miguel T Villodas  6 , Lea R Dougherty  7 , Jillian Lee Wiggins  8
Affiliations

Reward-related neural correlates of early life stress in school-aged children

Nicholas M Morelli et al. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2021 Jun.

Abstract

Objectives: Early life stress likely contributes to dysfunction in neural reward processing systems. However, studies to date have focused almost exclusively on adolescents and adults, measured early life stress retrospectively, and have often failed to control for concurrent levels of stress. The current study examined the contribution of prospectively measured cumulative life stress in preschool-age children on reward-related neural activation and connectivity in school-age children.

Methods: Children (N = 46) and caregivers reported children's exposure to early life stress between birth and preschool age (mean = 4.8 years, SD = 0.80). At follow-up (mean age = 7.52 years, SD = .78), participants performed a child-friendly monetary incentive delay task during functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Results: Children with higher levels of cumulative early life stress, controlling for concurrent stressful life events, exhibited aberrant patterns of neural activation and connectivity in reward- and emotion-related regions (e.g., prefrontal cortex, temporal pole, culmen), depending on the presence of a potential reward and whether or not the target was hit or missed.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that stress exposure during early childhood may impact neural reward processing systems earlier in development than has previously been demonstrated. Understanding how early life stress relates to alterations in reward processing could guide earlier, more mechanistic interventions.

Keywords: Connectivity; Early life stress; Reward; fMRI.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no declarations of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Activation Analyses. A) Early Life Stress x Condition x Performance. Graphs display the interaction between Early Life Stress, Condition (reward vs. no reward), and Performance (hit vs. miss). B) Early Life Stress x Condition. Graphs in B represent relationship between Early Life Stress and condition (reward vs. no reward). Across analyses, for illustrative purposes, graphs display predicted brain activation values for indicated clusters based on low and high scores in our sample (i.e., low=-4.38, high = 6.51). When multiple regions differed significantly in their activation during a single condition, the graph from one cluster was shown to illustrate the direction of effects. Brain regions represent axial sections (left = left) with threshold set at whole-brain FDR-corrected p < .05.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Connectivity Analyses: Feedback Period. A) Right Amygdala. Early Life Stress x Condition x Performance. Graphs display the interaction between Early Life Stress, Condition (reward vs. no reward), and Performance (hit vs. miss). B) Early Life Stress x Condition x Performance. Graphs in B represent the three-way interaction in the left middle frontal gyrus. Both left middle frontal gyrus clusters did not remain significant when covaried for depression; however, each showed a trend toward significance (indicated with a “^” in the Table 2; p=.069, right amygdala; p = .088, left amygdala). Across analyses, for illustrative purposes, graphs display predicted brain connectivity values for indicated clusters based on low and high scores in our sample (i.e., low=-4.38, high=6.51). When multiple regions differed significantly in their connectivity during a single condition, the graph from one cluster was shown to illustrate the direction of effects. Brain regions represent axial sections (left=left) with threshold set at whole-brain FDR-corrected p < .05.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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