title: Mismatch or allostatic load? Timing of life adversity differentially shapes gray matter volume and anxious temperament.
abstract: Traditionally, adversity was defined as the accumulation of environmental events (allostatic load). Recently however, a mismatch between the early and the later (adult) environment (mismatch) has been hypothesized to be critical for disease development, a hypothesis that has not yet been tested explicitly in humans. We explored the impact of timing of life adversity (childhood and past year) on anxiety and depression levels (N = 833) and brain morphology (N = 129). Both remote (childhood) and proximal (recent) adversities were differentially mirrored in morphometric changes in areas critically involved in emotional processing (i.e. amygdala/hippocampus, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, respectively). The effect of adversity on affect acted in an additive way with no evidence for interactions (mismatch). Structural equation modeling demonstrated a direct effect of adversity on morphometric estimates and anxiety/depression without evidence of brain morphology functioning as a mediator. Our results highlight that adversity manifests as pronounced changes in brain morphometric and affective temperament even though these seem to represent distinct mechanistic pathways. A major goal of future studies should be to define critical time periods for the impact of adversity and strategies for intervening to prevent or reverse the effects of adverse childhood life experiences.
authors.affiliation: Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kuhn
authors.affiliation: Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Scharfenort
authors.affiliation: Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schümann
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics, and Psychotherapy and Department of Psychology I, Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology und Psychotherapy, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Miriam A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Schiele
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Münster, Germany.
authors.forename: Anna L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Münsterkötter
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics, and Psychotherapy and.
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Deckert
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics, and Psychotherapy and.
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Domschke
authors.affiliation: Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany, Karolinska Institutet, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Haaker
authors.affiliation: Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany, Neuroimaging Center (NIC), Focus Program Translational Neuroscience, Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Raffael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kalisch
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology I, Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology und Psychotherapy, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pauli
authors.affiliation: University Hospital Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Frankfurt, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Reif
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Clinic of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Marcel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Romanos
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Münster, Germany, Department of Psychiatry, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Germany, and kbo Inn Salzach Hospital Wasserburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zwanzger
authors.affiliation: Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany, t.lonsdorf@uke.de.
authors.forename: Tina B
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Lonsdorf
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D054523:Adult Survivors of Child Abuse; D052636:Allostasis / Q000502:physiology*; D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D002648:Child; D003863:Depression / Q000503:physiopathology; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D066128:Gray Matter / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement; D008016:Life Change Events; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009929:Organ Size / Q000502:physiology; D012931:Social Environment; D013694:Temperament / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: VBM; adversity; allostatic load; childhood maltreatment; mismatch; stressful life events