SynthesisTranslational psychiatry2021
A systematic review of childhood maltreatment and DNA methylation: candidate gene and epigenome-wide approaches.
Synthesis in Translational psychiatry, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 96 papers, 7 of them syntheses 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
96 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 162 citations in OpenAlex.
- Childhood internalising symptoms at ages 3 and 6: a meta-analysis of epigenome-wide associations from cord and peripheral blood.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Pooled it
- Effectiveness of Attachment-Based Interventions for Maltreated Children's Well-Being: A Systematic Review.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2026Pooled it
- Multi-epigenome-wide analyses and meta-analysis of child maltreatment in judicial autopsies and intervened children and adolescents.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- The impact of adverse childhood experiences on DNA methylation age: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Clinical epigenetics · 2026Pooled it
- Impact of adverse childhood experiences on analgesia-related outcomes: a systematic review.British journal of anaesthesia · 2025Pooled it
- DNA methylation biomarkers and myopia: a multi-omics study integrating GWAS, mQTL and eQTL data.Clinical epigenetics · 2024Pooled it
- The impact of adverse childhood experiences on multimorbidity: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC medicine · 2024Pooled it
- S-adenosylmethionine as an epigenetic treatment of depression in adults with childhood trauma.Epigenomics · 2026Trial
- Longitudinal DNA methylation in parent-infant pairs impacted by intergenerational social adversity: An RCT of the Michigan Model of Infant Mental Health Home Visiting.Brain and behavior · 2024Trial
- Altered Postnatal Chromatin Development in the Nucleus Accumbens Primes Enduring Stress Sensitivity.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Mapping links between childhood maltreatment and biopsychosocial health in pregnancy: a network analysis.Archives of women's mental health · 2026Article
- Long-term molecular embedding of early life adversity: leukocyte DNA methylation and gene expression associations from childhood to young adulthood.Epigenomics · 2026Article
- Longitudinal associations of DNA-methylation of OXT, SLC6A4 and NR3C1 genes with the treatment response in patients with depression.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Adverse childhood and adult experiences, intrinsic capacity decline, and subsequent physical-psychological-cognitive multimorbidity: a prospective cohort study from China.The journal of nutrition, health & aging · 2026Article
- Sex Differences in the Interaction of Epigenetic Risk and Trajectories of Default Mode Limbic Network Integration Predicting Childhood Anxiety.Research square · 2026Article
- Experiences in close relationships, interpersonal trust and OXTR expression in individuals with childhood maltreatment.Borderline personality disorder and emotion dysregulation · 2026Article
- Early life trauma patterns and adult epigenome-wide and NR3C1-specific DNA methylation in the Sister Study.American journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Epigenetic Responses to Abusive versus Accidental Injuries in Children: A Cross-sectional Epigenome Wide Association Meta-analysis.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Methylome and transcriptome analysis reveal the impact of psychological stress on the skin.Molecular genetics and genomics : MGG · 2026Article
- Inter-individual differentially methylated region-targeted EWAS reveals epigenetic signatures of early childhood adversity.Epigenomics · 2026Article
36 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Childhood maltreatment is a major risk factor for chronic and severe mental and physical health problems across the lifespan. Increasing evidence supports the hypothesis that maltreatment is associated with epigenetic changes that may subsequently serve as mechanisms of disease. The current review uses a systematic approach to identify and summarize the literature related to childhood maltreatment and alterations in DNA methylation in humans. A total of 100 empirical articles were identified in our systematic review of research published prior to or during March 2020, including studies that focused on candidate genes and studies that leveraged epigenome-wide data in both children and adults. Themes arising from the literature, including consistent and inconsistent patterns of results, are presented. Several directions for future research, including important methodological considerations for future study design, are discussed. Taken together, the literature on childhood maltreatment and DNA methylation underscores the complexity of transactions between the environment and biology across development.
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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.