Evidence map›Paper›PMID 36376082›Full record

ArticleeNeuro

A Prospective Study of the Impact of Severe Childhood Deprivation on Brain White Matter in Adult Adoptees: Widespread Localized Reductions in Volume But Unaffected Microstructural Organization.

Nuria K Mackes, Mitul A Mehta, Ahmad Beyh, Richard O Nkrumah, Dennis Golm, Sagari Sarkar, Graeme Fairchild, Flavio Dell'Acqua, Edmund J S Sonuga-Barke, ERA Young Adult Follow-Up Team

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in eNeuro. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
1.0field-weighted citation impact, top 25% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

10 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.

Nuria K MackesDepartment of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom edmund.sonuga-barke@kcl.ac.uk nuria.mackes@kcl.ac.uk.
Mitul A MehtaDepartment of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom.
Ahmad BeyhDepartment of Forensic & Neurodevelopmental Sciences. Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9071-0150
Richard O NkrumahDepartment of Neuroimaging, Central Institute of Mental Health Mannheim, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim J5 68159, Germany.
Dennis GolmCentre for Innovation in Mental Health, School of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1PS, United Kingdom.
Sagari SarkarCognitive Neuroscience & Neuropsychiatry, Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, University College London, London WC1N 1EH, United Kingdom.
Graeme FairchildDepartment of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom.
Flavio Dell'AcquaDepartment of Forensic & Neurodevelopmental Sciences. Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom.
Edmund J S Sonuga-BarkeDepartment of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom edmund.sonuga-barke@kcl.ac.uk nuria.mackes@kcl.ac.uk.
ERA Young Adult Follow-Up Team
King's College London · GBHeidelberg University · DEInstitute of Child Health · INUniversity of Bath · GBUniversity of Southampton · GB

Funding

Medical Research Council MR/K022474/1Medical Research Council MR/K022474/2
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Early childhood neglect can impact brain development across the lifespan. Using voxel-based approaches we recently reported that severe and time-limited institutional deprivation in early childhood was linked to substantial reductions in total brain volume in adulthood, >20 years later. Here, we extend this analysis to explore deprivation-related regional white matter volume and microstructural organization using diffusion-based techniques. A combination of tensor-based morphometry (TBM) analysis and tractography was conducted on diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) data from 59 young adults who spent between 3 and 41 months in the severely depriving Romanian institutions of the 1980s before being adopted into United Kingdom families, and 20 nondeprived age-matched United Kingdom controls. Independent of total volume, institutional deprivation was associated with smaller volumes in localized regions across a range of white matter tracts including (1) long-ranging association fibers such as bilateral inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), bilateral inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), left superior longitudinal fasciculi (SLFs), and left arcuate fasciculus; (2) tracts of the limbic circuitry including fornix and cingulum; and (3) projection fibers with the corticospinal tract particularly affected. Tractographic analysis found no evidence of altered microstructural organization of any tract in terms of hindrance modulated orientational anisotropy (HMOA), fractional anisotropy (FA), or mean diffusivity (MD). We provide further evidence for the effects of early neglect on brain development and their persistence in adulthood despite many years of environmental enrichment associated with successful adoption. Localized white matter effects appear limited to volumetric changes with microstructural organization unaffected.

Indexed as

White MatterAdultAnisotropyBrainChild, PreschoolDiffusion Tensor ImagingHumansProspective StudiesYoung Adultbrain imagingearly adversityinstitutional deprivationplasticitytractographywhite matter structure

Identifiers

PMID36376082
PMCPMC9665880
OpenAlexW4309366586

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

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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.