ArticleBrain and behavior2020
Childhood maltreatment experiences are associated with altered diffusion in occipito-temporal white matter pathways.
Article in Brain and behavior, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Coordinating Global Multi-Site Studies of Military-Relevant Traumatic Brain Injury: Opportunities, Challenges, and Harmonization Guidelines.Brain imaging and behavior · 2021Pooled it
- The role of white matter microstructure in the association between childhood maltreatment and adult post-traumatic symptoms.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Suicide attempt history, childhood trauma, and functional brain network alterations in major depressive disorder: a resting-state functional connectivity-based multivariate pattern analysis.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Exploring the relationship between childhood trauma and internet addiction among nursing students: a latent profile and mediation analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- The neurobiological effects of childhood maltreatment on brain structure, function, and attachment.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2025Review
- Childhood Adversity Is Associated With Longitudinal White Matter Changes After Adulthood Trauma.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2025Article
- Increased Brain Age Among Psychiatrically Healthy Adults Exposed to Childhood Trauma.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
- Affective Visual Circuit Dysfunction in Trauma and Stress-Related Disorders.Biological psychiatry · 2025Review
- Parent Psychopathology and Behavioral Effects on Child Brain-Symptom Networks in the ABCD Study.Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2024Article
- Sensory alterations in post-traumatic stress disorder.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2024Review
- Shared and distinct structural brain networks related to childhood maltreatment and social support: connectome-based predictive modeling.Molecular psychiatry · 2023Article
- Predicting Fear Extinction in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.Brain sciences · 2023Article
- Reduced structural connectivity of the amygdala is associated with childhood trauma in adult patients with alcohol use disorder.Addiction biology · 2022Article
- Longitudinal hippocampal circuit change differentiates persistence and remission of pediatric posttraumatic stress disorder.Depression and anxiety · 2022Article
- Callosal abnormalities, altered cortisol levels, and neurocognitive deficits associated with early maltreatment among adolescents: A voxel-based diffusion-tensor imaging study.Brain and behavior · 2021Article
- Adverse Childhood Experience Is Associated With Disrupted White Matter Integrity in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Article
- Exploring the impact of trauma type and extent of exposure on posttraumatic alterations in 5-HT1A expression.Translational psychiatry · 2020Review
- Childhood maltreatment experiences are associated with altered diffusion in occipito-temporal white matter pathways.Brain and behavior · 2020Article
- The Long-Term Effects of Adolescent Social Defeat Stress on Oligodendrocyte Lineage Cells and Neuroinflammatory Mediators in Mice.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundChildhood maltreatment may contribute to brain alterations in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We previously found that PTSD was associated with white matter compromise, or lower fractional anisotropy (FA), in the left inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF). In this study, including non-PTSD controls, we examined whether ILF FA was associated with maltreatment exposures, including those that meet DSM-IV criterion A (physical abuse, sexual abuse) and those that typically do not (emotional abuse, emotional neglect, physical neglect). We hypothesized that lower FA would be associated with PTSD diagnosis and with both categories of maltreatment.
methodsNinety-three participants (51 female), ages 20-50, were enrolled, including 32 with lifetime DSM-IV PTSD, 27 trauma-exposed non-PTSD controls, and 34 healthy controls. Participants completed structured interviews, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), and diffusion-weighted imaging (36 directions). Probabilistic tractography (using FreeSurfer's TRACULA) was used to assess diffusion metrics in the ILF.
resultsContrary to our hypothesis, there was no significant effect of diagnostic group on FA. In contrast, higher CTQ scores were significantly associated with lower FA in the ILF bilaterally. This association of maltreatment with lower FA remained statistically significant after controlling for diagnostic group, and it was significant for both criterion-A-type and noncriterion-A-type maltreatment categories.
conclusionsThis work contributes to a growing body of literature indicating that different forms of childhood maltreatment are associated with altered white matter microstructure in the ILF, an association pathway involved in integrating visual information from occipital regions with emotion processing functions of the anterior temporal lobe.
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