title: Enduring psychobiological effects of childhood adversity.
abstract: This mini-review refers to recent findings on psychobiological long-term consequences of childhood trauma and adverse living conditions. The continuum of trauma-provoked aftermath reaches from healthy adaptation with high resilience, to severe maladjustment with co-occurring psychiatric and physical pathologies in children, adolescents and adults. There is increasing evidence of a strong interconnectivity between genetic dispositions, epigenetic processes, stress-related hormonal systems and immune parameters in all forms of (mal)-adjustment to adverse living conditions. Unfavorable constellations of these dispositions and systems, such as low cortisol levels and elevated markers of inflammation in maltreated children, seem to promote the (co)-occurrence of psychiatric and physical pathologies such as posttraumatic stress disorder, obesity, or diabetes. Although findings from prospective study designs support a deepened understanding of causal relations between adverse living conditions, including traumatic experiences, during childhood and its psychobiological effects, so far, little is known about the temporal coincidence of stress-sensitive developmental stages during childhood and adolescence and trauma consequences. Taken together, childhood adversity is a severe risk factor for the onset of psychobiological (mal)-adjustment, which has to be explained under consideration of diverse physiological systems and developmental stages of childhood and adolescence.
authors.affiliation: University of Zurich, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Zurich, Switzerland. Electronic address: u.ehlert@psychologie.uzh.ch.
authors.forename: Ulrike
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Ehlert
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000324:Adrenocorticotropic Hormone / Q000378:metabolism; D054523:Adult Survivors of Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology; D017668:Age of Onset; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual; D002657:Child Development; D019548:Crime Victims; D004644:Emotions; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D005938:Glucocorticoids / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D007030:Hypothalamo-Hypophyseal System / Q000503:physiopathology; D007249:Inflammation / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D010913:Pituitary-Adrenal System / Q000503:physiopathology; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D002666:Psychology, Child; D012307:Risk Factors; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology
chemical_list: D005938:Glucocorticoids; D000324:Adrenocorticotropic Hormone
keywords: Adverse living conditions; Child development; Childhood trauma; Epigenetics; Genetics; HPA axis; Inflammation; Multi-morbidity