ArticlePsychological medicine2020
Earlier age at menarche as a transdiagnostic mechanism linking childhood trauma with multiple forms of psychopathology in adolescent girls.
Article in Psychological medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 74 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Cognitive Control Across the Lifespan: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prospective Studies.Trauma, violence & abuse · 2025Pooled it
- Biological aging in childhood and adolescence following experiences of threat and deprivation: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychological bulletin · 2020Pooled it
- From Adversity to Materialistic Value Orientation: Parent-Child Attachment and Gender Differences in Chinese Adolescents.Journal of adolescence · 2026Article
- Timing and tempo of puberty and neurodevelopment following adversity: A registered report.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2026Article
- Timing matters: a prospective investigation of father absence and pubertal timing in girls and boys.Biology of sex differences · 2026Article
- Psychobiological mechanisms underlying the association between early life stress and depression in adolescence.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- Synchrony between brain age and internalising and externalising symptoms across adolescence.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Women's mental health: current status and evolutionary perspectives.Evolutionary human sciences · 2026Review
- Associations between socioeconomic status and mental health trajectories during early adolescence: Findings from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study.JCPP advances · 2025Article
- Sexual Orientation, Pubertal Timing, Inhibitory Control, and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: A Birth Cohort Study.Archives of sexual behavior · 2025Article
- Environmental Adversity Is Associated With Attenuated Positive Symptoms and Complex Cognition in a Long-term Follow-up of the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2025Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of central precocious puberty: A PRISMA-ScR-COMPLIANT scoping review.Archives of endocrinology and metabolism · 2025Article
- Associations between structural stigma and earlier pubertal timing persist for 1 year among Black girls and Latinx youth.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Sex Differences in the Association Between Difficulties with Worry Regulation and Anxiety Symptoms in Black Children.Journal of child and family studies · 2025Article
- Sex differences in the roles of nicotine use and puberty on youth C-reactive protein levels: Effects above and beyond adversity.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2024Article
- Prenatal environment is associated with the pace of cortical network development over the first three years of life.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Annual Research Review: Puberty and the development of anhedonia - considering childhood adversity and inflammation.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2024Review
- Early life adversity accelerates hypothalamic drive of pubertal timing in female rats with associated enhanced acoustic startle.Hormones and behavior · 2024Article
- Exploring sex differences in trajectories of pubertal development and mental health following early adversity.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Article
- The primacy of ocular perception: a narrative review on the role of gender identity in eating disorders.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAlthough early life adversity (ELA) increases risk for psychopathology, mechanisms linking ELA with the onset of psychopathology remain poorly understood. Conceptual models have argued that ELA accelerates development. It is unknown whether all forms of ELA are associated with accelerated development or whether early maturation is a potential mechanism linking ELA with psychopathology. We examine whether two distinct dimensions of ELA - threat and deprivation - have differential associations with pubertal timing in girls, and evaluate whether accelerated pubertal timing is a mechanism linking ELA with the onset of adolescent psychopathology.
methodsData were drawn from a large, nationally representative sample of 4937 adolescent girls. Multiple forms of ELA characterized by threat and deprivation were assessed along with age at menarche (AAM) and the onset of DSM-IV fear, distress, externalizing, and eating disorders.
resultsGreater exposure to threat was associated with earlier AAM (B = -0.1, p = 0.001). Each 1-year increase in AAM was associated with reduced odds of fear, distress, and externalizing disorders post-menarche (ORs = 0.74-0.85). Earlier AAM significantly mediated the association between exposure to threat and post-menarche onset of distress (proportion mediated = 6.2%), fear (proportion mediated = 16.3%), and externalizing disorders (proportion mediated = 2.9%).
conclusionsAccelerated pubertal development in girls may be one transdiagnostic pathway through which threat-related experiences confer risk for the adolescent onset of mental disorders. Early pubertal maturation is a marker that could be used in both medical and mental health settings to identify trauma-exposed youth that are at risk for developing a mental disorder during adolescence in order to better target early interventions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.