ArticleNeurobiology of learning and memory2020
Early-life stress is associated with a preponderance of habitual responding in a novel instrumental avoidance learning paradigm.
Article in Neurobiology of learning and memory, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- How childhood adversity affects components of decision making.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Naturalistic Associations Between Childhood Maltreatment, Compulsivity, and Eating Disorder Symptoms Over a 12-Months Period Among Individuals With Anorexia Nervosa.European eating disorders review : the journal of the Eating Disorders Association · 2026Article
- Devaluation of response-produced safety signals reveals circuits for goal-directed versus habitual avoidance in dorsal striatum.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Adolescent stress exposure induces persistent, sex-specific cognitive deficits.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2025Article
- Early life racial/ethnic discrimination effects on behavioral control and health outcomes in young adults.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- A dual-pathway architecture enables chronic stress to disrupt agency and promote habit formation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Social experience in adolescence shapes prefrontal cortex structure and function in adulthood.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- Childhood adversity and mind wandering: the mediating role of cognitive flexibility and habitual tendencies.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2024Article
- Childhood unpredictability and the development of exploration.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Effects of early-life stress on probabilistic reversal learning and response perseverance in young adults.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2023Article
- Stress, associative learning, and decision-making.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2023Review
- Sex-dependent effects of early life stress on reinforcement learning and limbic cortico-striatal functional connectivity.Neurobiology of stress · 2023Article
- Chronic corticosterone administration in adolescence enhances dorsolateral striatum-dependent learning in adulthood.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
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Abstract
There is substantial evidence linking early-life stress (ELS) to negative health outcomes in adulthood, including addiction. However, the neurocognitive and behavioral mechanisms through which ELS increases these risks remain unclear. To address this gap in knowledge, we developed a novel instrumental learning paradigm to explore the effects of ELS on the balance of habitual versus goal-directed learning. Habits efficiently reproduce repetitive behaviors but are inflexible whenreward contingencies related to those behaviors change. Persisting in performing a response after its outcome has been devalued is the hallmark of habitual behavior in instrumental learning. Participants with a history of higher ELS were significantly more likely to make habitual responses in this instrumental avoidance learning paradigm than individuals with a history of lower ELS. Logistic regression analysis showed that ELS is significantly related to habitual responding over and above the effects of retrospective socioeconomic status, trait and state anxiety, depression and recent levels of stress. Analysis of the differential impacts of the type of ELS suggested that these effects are largely driven by experiences of physical neglect.
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