Enhanced Prefrontal-Amygdala Connectivity Following Childhood Adversity as a Protective Mechanism Against Internalizing in Adolescence
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Background Much research has focused on the deleterious neurobiological effects of childhood adversity that may underlie internalizing disorders. While most youth show emotional adaptation following adversity, the corresponding neural mechanisms remain poorly understood.Methods In this longitudinal community study, we examined the associations among childhood family adversity, adolescent internalizing symptoms, and their interaction on regional brain activation and amygdala/hippocampus functional connectivity during emotion processing in 132 adolescents.Results Consistent with prior work, childhood adversity predicted heightened amygdala reactivity to negative, but not positive, images in adolescence. However, amygdala reactivity was not related to internalizing symptoms. Furthermore, childhood adversity predicted increased fronto-amygdala connectivity to negative, but not positive, images, yet only in lower internalizing adolescents. Childhood adversity also predicted increased fronto-hippocampal connectivity to negative images, but was not moderated by internalizing. These findings were unrelated to adolescence adversity or externalizing symptoms, suggesting specificity to childhood adversity and adolescent internalizing.Conclusions Together, these findings suggest that adaptation to childhood adversity is associated with augmentation of fronto-subcortical circuits specifically for negative emotional stimuli. Conversely, insufficient enhancement of fronto-amygdala connectivity, with increasing amygdala reactivity, may represent a neural signature of vulnerability for internalizing by late adolescence. These findings implicate early childhood as a critical period in determining the brain's adaptation to adversity, and suggest that even normative adverse experiences can have significant impact on neurodevelopment and functioning. These results offer potential neural mechanisms of adaptation and vulnerability which could be used in the prediction of risk for psychopathology following childhood adversity.
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Childhood trauma and adversity are associated with increased amygdala reactivity to negative stimuli and decreased resting functional coupling between amygdala and vmPFC.
“childhood trauma and adversity are associated with increased amygdala reactivity particularly to negative stimuli (e.g. [38–47]) as well as decreased resting functional coupling between the amygdala and vmPFC [48,49].”
From Trauma, PTSD, and the Developing Brain (2017) · cites this paper as [45]
The Introduction (page unavailable) reports prior work linking childhood adversity to decreased intrinsic mPFC–amygdala connectivity, supporting the resting-coupling portion of the claim. It does not specify the ventromedial PFC, and this paper’s Results instead concern connectivity during an emotion-processing task. The increased-reactivity clause has separate citations in the citing sentence and is not attributed to this source. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredChildhood trauma may influence the development of threat processing and emotion regulatory systems, contributing risk for affective disorders.
“Many studies now suggest that childhood trauma may influence the development of threat processing and emotion regulatory systems, contributing risk for the emergence of affective disorders.”
From Trauma, PTSD, and the Developing Brain (2017) · cites this paper as [45]
In a community sample of late adolescents, all adolescents showed adversity-related increases in amygdala reactivity to negative images, regardless of internalizing levels.
“Regardless of internalizing levels, all adolescents showed adversity-related increases in amygdala reactivity to negative images.”
From Trauma, PTSD, and the Developing Brain (2017) · cites this paper as [45]
Low internalizing adolescents showed adversity-related increases in prefrontal-amygdala coupling, while high internalizing adolescents did not.
“low internalizing adolescents showed adversity-related increases in prefrontal-amygdala coupling, while high internalizing adolescents did not.”
From Trauma, PTSD, and the Developing Brain (2017) · cites this paper as [45]
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References 42 · Cited by 101
- Authors
- Herringa, R. J., Burghy, C. A., Stodola, D. E., Fox, M. E., Davidson, R. J., & Essex, M. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Georgia State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Herringa, Ryan J.
- Venue
- Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2016-07
- Volume
- 1
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 326-334
- ISSN
- 2451-9022 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5055123
- OpenAlex
- W2321564184
- Cited by
- 101
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 3
- FWCI
- 13.82
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Biological Psychiatry Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- US National Institutes of Health (P50 MH084051, P50 MH052354, R01 MH044340)
- National Institute of Mental Health (K08 MH100267)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- childhood adversity, internalizing problems, amygdala reactivity, hippocampus, emotional processing, brain development, adolescence, negative emotional stimuli
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