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. 2025 Nov;30(4):623-637.
doi: 10.1177/10775595241301746. Epub 2024 Nov 21.

Early Exposure to Deprivation or Threat Moderates Expected Associations Between Neural Structure and Age in Adolescent Girls

Kathryn Garrisi  1 , Angelina Pei-Tzu Tsai  1 , Kinjal K Patel  1 , Meredith A Gruhn  1 , Matteo Giletta  2 , Paul D Hastings  3 , Matthew K Nock  4 , Karen D Rudolph  5 , George M Slavich  6 , Mitchell J Prinstein  1 , Adam Bryant Miller  1   7 , Margaret A Sheridan  1
Affiliations

Early Exposure to Deprivation or Threat Moderates Expected Associations Between Neural Structure and Age in Adolescent Girls

Kathryn Garrisi et al. Child Maltreat. 2025 Nov.

Abstract

Childhood adversity (CA) is associated with increased risk of negative health outcomes. Research implicates brain structure following CA as a key mechanism of this risk, and recent models suggest different forms of adversity differentially impact neural structure as a function of development (accelerated or attenuated development). Employing the Dimensional Model of Adversity and Psychopathology, we examined whether deprivation and threat differentially impact age-related change in cortical thickness, cortical surface area, and subcortical structure volume, using whole-brain and region of interest analyses (N = 135). In youth without CA, age predicted less surface area across adolescence, consistent with normative data. However, for adolescents with more deprivation exposure, as age increased there was attenuated surface area decreases in the orbitofrontal and superior-parietal cortex, regions recruited for higher-order cognition. Further, for those with more threat exposure, as age increased surface area increased in the inferior-temporal and parietal cortex, regions recruited in socio-emotional tasks. These novel findings extend work examining the impact of dimensions of adversity at a single-age and broaden current conceptualizations of how adversity might impact developmental timing.

Keywords: adolescents; child adversity; early childhood; neglect; neurocognition.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Whole-brain analyses (N = 135). (A) The interaction between age and deprivation is associated with a less normative pattern of surface area development. (B) The interaction between age and threat is associated with a less normative pattern of surface area development.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Simple slopes show predicted selective surface area as a function of adolescent age at three levels of deprivation in the left hemisphere (A) and right hemisphere (B).
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Simple slopes show predicted selective surface area as a function of adolescent age at three levels of threat exposures in each hemisphere.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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