Childhood Maltreatment and Deviations From Normative Brain Structure: A Mega-Analysis of 3711 Individuals From the ENIGMA Major Depressive Disorder and ENIGMA Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Working Groups.
Haley R Wang, Zhen-Qi Liu, Elena Pozzi et al.
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In 30 seconds
This ENIGMA mega-analysis examined associations between childhood maltreatment and normative brain-structure deviations in 3,711 participants across 25 sites, including patients with major depressive disorder or posttraumatic stress disorder and healthy controls. Normative modeling assessed subcortical volumes, cortical thickness, and surface area, with analyses stratified by sex and age. Associations varied by developmental stage and sex: no significant effects were found in participants aged 18 years or younger, while young adults showed multiple regional associations. The strongest effects occurred in young women, where greater abuse and neglect correlated with several structural deviations (|β| = 0.07-0.22, q < .05).
Key findings
- No significant associations between childhood maltreatment and brain deviations were detected in pediatric participants (≤18 years).
- In young adults (ages 18-35), abuse was associated with larger thalamus and pallidum volumes and region-specific cortical-thickness differences.
- In young female adults, greater abuse and neglect correlated with smaller hippocampus and putamen volumes and multiple cortical surface-area and thickness differences (|β| = 0.07-0.22, q < .05).
- In males, abuse was associated with widespread cortical-thickness and surface-area effects (|β| = 0.1-0.18, q < .05); neglect effects were minimal.
Why it matters
The findings suggest that associations between childhood maltreatment and brain morphology are not uniform across age or sex. Considering developmental context may help research characterize neurobiological vulnerability related to MDD and PTSD more precisely. The results describe group-level associations and do not establish that maltreatment caused the observed structural differences or that these measures predict an individual’s clinical course.
What to keep in mind
The analysis is observational, so it cannot establish that maltreatment caused the brain-structure differences.