Trial reportPsychological medicine2020
Global deficits in executive functioning are transdiagnostic mediators between severe childhood neglect and psychopathology in adolescence.
Trial report in Psychological medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 61 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
- Family-based care buffers the stress sensitizing effect of early deprivation on executive functioning difficulties in adolescence.Child development · 2023Trial
- Heightened sensitivity to the caregiving environment during adolescence: implications for recovery following early-life adversity.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2021Trial
- Psychiatric outcomes following severe deprivation in early childhood: Follow-up of a randomized controlled trial at age 16.Journal of consulting and clinical psychology · 2020Trial
- Adolescent cognitive control and mediofrontal theta oscillations are disrupted by neglect: Associations with transdiagnostic risk for psychopathology in a randomized controlled trial.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2020Trial
- Cerebellar Functional Alterations During Executive Functioning Are Associated With General Psychopathology in a Cross-Diagnostic Sample.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2026Article
- Associations Among Bullying Victimization, Executive Functions, and Adolescent Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms: A Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model.Journal of adolescence · 2026Article
- Alterations in resting-state functional connectivity relate to psychopathology trajectories during emerging adolescence.JCPP advances · 2026Article
- Executive function and implications for the Preterm Behavioral Phenotype in very preterm children at age 9-10 years.Journal of neurodevelopmental disorders · 2026Article
- Mediational Role of Executive Functions on Parental Style and Anxiety and Depression Symptoms in Adolescents From Different Vulnerability Environments: A Cross-Sectional Study.Depression and anxiety · 2026Article
- Endophenotype Research in Epilepsy Across Time.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Profiles in Nonverbal Learning Disability, Academic Skills, and Psychiatric Diagnoses in Children.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Investigating risk factor and consequence accounts of executive functioning impairments in psychopathology: an 8-year study of at-risk individuals in Brazil.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
- Associations of neighborhood threat and deprivation with psychopathology: Uncovering neural mechanisms.Development and psychopathology · 2025Article
- Identifying cognitive, affective, and developmental mechanisms linking threat and deprivation with adolescent psychopathology.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2025Article
- Linking caregiving quality during infancy to brain activity in early childhood and later executive function.Developmental science · 2024Article
- Impacts of early deprivation on behavioral and neural measures of executive function in early adolescence.Brain and cognition · 2024Article
- Gender differences in the associations between childhood adversity and psychopathology in the general population.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2024Article
- The general psychopathology factor (Development and psychopathology · 2023Article
- Reduced volume of the left cerebellar lobule VIIb and its increased connectivity within the cerebellum predict more general psychopathology one year later via worse cognitive flexibility in children.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundChildren reared in institutions experience profound deprivation that is associated with both heightened levels of psychopathology and deficits in executive functioning (EF). It is unclear whether deficits in EF among institutionally-reared children serve as a vulnerability factor that increases risk for later psychopathology. It is also unclear whether this putative association between EF and psychopathology is transdiagnostic (i.e. cuts across domains of psychopathology), or specific to a given syndrome. Thus, we examined whether global deficits in EF mediate the association between severe childhood neglect and general v. specific psychopathology in adolescence.
methodsThe sample consisted of 188 children from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a longitudinal study examining the brain and behavioral development of children reared in Romanian institutions and a comparison group of never-institutionalized children. EF was assessed at age 8, 12, and 16 using a well-validated measure of neuropsychological functioning. Psychopathology was measured as general (P) and specific internalizing (INT) and externalizing (EXT) factors at age 12 and 16.
resultsInstitutionally-reared children had lower global EF and higher general psychopathology (P) at all ages compared to never-institutionalized children. Longitudinal path analysis revealed that the effect of institutionalization on P at age 16 operated indirectly through poorer EF from ages 8 to 12. No indirect effects involving EF were observed for INT or EXT at age 16.
conclusionsWe conclude that stable, global deficits in EF serve as a cognitive endophenotype that increases transdiagnostic vulnerability to psychopathology in adolescence among those who have experienced profound early neglect.
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