Early interpersonal trauma reduces temporoparietal junction activity during spontaneous mentalising

Abstract Experience of interpersonal trauma and violence alters self-other distinction and mentalising abilities (also known as theory of mind, or ToM), yet little is known about their neural correlates. This fMRI study assessed temporoparietal junction (TPJ) activation, an area strongly implicated in interpersonal processing, during spontaneous mentalising in 35 adult women with histories of childhood physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse (childhood abuse; CA) and 31 women without such experiences (unaffected comparisons; UC). Participants watched movies during which an agent formed true or false beliefs about the location of a ball, while participants always knew the true location of the ball. As hypothesised, right TPJ activation was greater for UCs compared to CAs for false vs true belief conditions. In addition, CAs showed increased functional connectivity relative to UCs between the rTPJ and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Finally, the agent’s belief about the presence of the ball influenced participants’ responses (ToM index), but without group differences. These findings highlight that experiencing early interpersonal trauma can alter brain areas involved in the neural processing of ToM and perspective-taking during adulthood.

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Spontaneous mentalizing after early interpersonal trauma: Evidence for hypoactivation of the temporoparietal junction

10.1101/487363 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Anna Hudson ◽

Charlotte Van Hamme ◽

Lien Maeyens ◽

Marcel Brass ◽

Sven Mueller

Keyword(s):

Childhood Abuse ◽

Emotional Abuse ◽

True Belief ◽

Interpersonal Trauma ◽

Group Differences ◽

Adult Women ◽

Temporoparietal Junction ◽

Fmri Study ◽

True Location ◽

Neural Effect

Experience of interpersonal trauma and violence alters self-other distinction (also known as theory of mind, or ToM), yet little is known about their neural correlates. This fMRI study assessed temporoparietal junction (TPJ) activation, an area strongly implicated in interpersonal processing, during spontaneous mentalizing in 35 adult women with histories of childhood physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse (childhood abuse; CA) and 31 women without such experiences (unaffected comparisons, UC). Participants watched movies during which an agent formed true or false beliefs about the location of a ball, while participants always knew the true location of the ball. As hypothesized, right TPJ activation was greater for UC compared to CA for false versus true belief conditions. However, posttraumatic stress symptomatology (PTSS) appeared to play a role in driving the neural effect. In addition, CA showed increased functional connectivity relative to UC between the rTPJ and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Finally, the agent's false belief about the presence of the ball speeded participants' response (ToM indx), but without group differences. These findings highlight that experiencing early interpersonal trauma can alter brain areas involved in the neural processing of ToM and perspective-taking during adulthood.

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Neural Correlates of Error Processing in Young People With a History of Severe Childhood Abuse: An fMRI Study

American Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.14081042 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 172 (9) ◽

pp. 892-900 ◽

Cited By ~ 38

Author(s):

Lena Lim ◽

Heledd Hart ◽

Mitul A. Mehta ◽

Andrew Simmons ◽

Kah Mirza ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Young People ◽

Childhood Abuse ◽

Neural Correlates ◽

Error Processing ◽

Fmri Study ◽

History Of

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Childhood abuse in adult women with unipolar depression seeking treatment at a tertiary care centre in India, compared to healthy women

European Psychiatry ◽

10.1016/j.eurpsy.2016.01.1476 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 33 (S1) ◽

pp. S408-S409

Author(s):

G. Devasthali ◽

K. Jangam ◽

T. Ka ◽

A. Raj ◽

M. Kesavan

Keyword(s):

Sexual Abuse ◽

Psychiatric Disorders ◽

Childhood Abuse ◽

Emotional Abuse ◽

Tertiary Care ◽

Unipolar Depression ◽

Adult Women ◽

Healthy Women ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Childhood Emotional Abuse

IntroductionChildhood abuse has been reported as a precursor and maintaining factors for adult psychiatric disorders. Childhood physical abuse, neglect and sexual abuse have been independently reported in women with depression. There is a serious dearth of literature on the incidence of childhood abuse among women with depression from India.Objectives & aimsWe investigated and compared the incidence of childhood abuse (overall) – physical, emotional and sexual (individual components)- among women seeking treatment for unipolar depression (UD) compared to healthy women (HW).MethodsWe compared the data of women diagnosed with UD (n = 134) from a larger pool of women seeking treatment for psychiatric disorders from our hospital (n = 609) with HW (n = 100) for the purpose of this study. The participants were screened using the MINI International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) and for childhood abuse using the ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool - Retrospective (ICAST)-R. The incidence of childhood abuse between the two groups was compared using the Chi-squared test.ResultsThe UD women have significantly more childhood emotional abuse than HW (69.5% vs 30.5%; χ2 = 4.819, P < 0.05). There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups on overall abuse, physical or sexual abuse (all P > 0.16).ConclusionsConsistent with world literature, significantly more childhood emotional abuse was seen among Indian women with UD compared to HW. It is likely that that repeated emotional abuse in childhood leads to negative attributions among children, later getting generalised to life events resulting in depression in adulthood.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

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Childhood Emotional Neglect Related to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms and Body Mass Index in Adult Women

Psychological Reports ◽

10.2466/pr0.105.1.111-126 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 105 (1) ◽

pp. 111-126 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Cathy L. Pederson ◽

Josephine F. Wilson

Keyword(s):

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder ◽

Posttraumatic Stress ◽

Childhood Abuse ◽

Emotional Abuse ◽

Stress Disorder ◽

Adult Women ◽

Strongly Correlated ◽

Emotional Neglect ◽

Childhood Trauma Questionnaire ◽

Demographic Questionnaire

The relationships among the severity of childhood abuse and neglect, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and adult obesity were investigated. 207 women ( M age = 26.5 yr., SD = 6.7) completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Millon Clinician Multiaxial Inventory, and a demographic questionnaire. Analyses of variance indicated that women who reported moderate-to-extreme emotional neglect ( n = 71) had significantly higher PTSD scores and increased BMI compared to women who reported low emotional neglect ( n = 84). Women who reported severe sexual or emotional abuse also had higher PTSD scores, but no relationship was found with BMI when other factors were controlled. Although PTSD scores and self-reported severity of childhood emotional neglect were strongly correlated ( r206 = .61, p < .001), PTSD was not found to be a mediating factor in obesity in women who reported childhood emotional neglect, although depression was.

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Anticipating agoraphobic situations: the neural correlates of panic disorder with agoraphobia

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291713003085 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 44 (11) ◽

pp. 2385-2396 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

A. Wittmann ◽

F. Schlagenhauf ◽

A. Guhn ◽

U. Lueken ◽

C. Gaehlsdorf ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Panic Disorder ◽

Ventral Striatum ◽

Neural Substrates ◽

Neural Correlates ◽

Panic Attacks ◽

Group Differences ◽

Specific Stimulus ◽

Fmri Study ◽

Healthy Control ◽

Left Insula

BackgroundPanic disorder with agoraphobia is characterized by panic attacks and anxiety in situations where escape might be difficult. However, neuroimaging studies specifically focusing on agoraphobia are rare. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with disorder-specific stimuli to investigate the neural substrates of agoraphobia.MethodWe compared the neural activations of 72 patients suffering from panic disorder with agoraphobia with 72 matched healthy control subjects in a 3-T fMRI study. To isolate agoraphobia-specific alterations we tested the effects of the anticipation and perception of an agoraphobia-specific stimulus set. During fMRI, 48 agoraphobia-specific and 48 neutral pictures were randomly presented with and without anticipatory stimulus indicating the content of the subsequent pictures (Westphal paradigm).ResultsDuring the anticipation of agoraphobia-specific pictures, stronger activations were found in the bilateral ventral striatum and left insula in patients compared with controls. There were no group differences during the perception phase of agoraphobia-specific pictures.ConclusionsThis study revealed stronger region-specific activations in patients suffering from panic disorder with agoraphobia in anticipation of agoraphobia-specific stimuli. Patients seem to process these stimuli more intensively based on individual salience. Hyperactivation of the ventral striatum and insula when anticipating agoraphobia-specific situations might be a central neurofunctional correlate of agoraphobia. Knowledge about the neural correlates of anticipatory and perceptual processes regarding agoraphobic situations will help to optimize and evaluate treatments, such as exposure therapy, in patients with panic disorder and agoraphobia.

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