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Examination of the association between exposure to childhood maltreatment and brain structure in young adults: a machine learning analysis

Neuropsychopharmacology volume 46, pages 1888–1894 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Exposure to maltreatment during childhood is associated with structural changes throughout the brain. However, the structural differences that are most strongly associated with maltreatment remain unclear given the limited number of whole-brain studies. The present study used machine learning to identify if and how brain structure distinguished young adults with and without a history of maltreatment. Young adults (ages 18–21, n = 384) completed an assessment of childhood trauma exposure and a structural MRI as part of the IMAGEN study. Elastic net regularized regression was used to identify the structural features that identified those with a history of maltreatment. A generalizable model that included 7 cortical thicknesses, 15 surface areas, and 5 subcortical volumes was identified (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve = 0.71, p < 0.001). Those with a maltreatment history had reduced surface areas and cortical thicknesses primarily in fronto-temporal regions. This group also had larger cortical thicknesses in occipital regions and surface areas in frontal regions. The results suggest childhood maltreatment is associated with multiple measures of structure throughout the brain. The use of a large sample without exposure to adulthood trauma provides further evidence for the unique contribution of childhood trauma to brain structure. The identified regions overlapped with regions associated with psychopathology in adults with maltreatment histories, which offers insights as to how these disorders manifest.

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Fig. 1: Importance plot of features involved in classification.
Fig. 2: Brain regions involved in classification of those with a history of maltreatment.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Research on Emotion Stress and Technology, Department of Psychological Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA

    Matthew Price, Zoe M. F. Brier, Alison C. Legrand & Katherine van Stolk-Cooke

  2. Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA

    Matthew Albaugh, Sage Hahn, Anthony C. Juliano, Bader Chaarani, Alexandra Potter, Kelly Peck, Nicholas Allgaier & Hugh Garavan

  3. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Negar Fani

  4. Vermont Center on Behavior and Health, Burlington, VT, USA

    Kelly Peck

  5. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany

    Tobias Banaschewski, Frauke Nees & Sarah Hohmann

  6. Department of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, UK

    Arun L. W. Bokde & Frauke Nees

  7. Discipline of Psychiatry, School of Medicine and Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Erin Burke Quinlan

  8. Centre for Population Neuroscience and Precision Medicine (PONS), Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, SGDP Centre, King’s College London, London, UK

    Sylvane Desrivières & Gunter Schumann

  9. Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany

    Herta Flor

  10. Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany

    Herta Flor

  11. NeuroSpin, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Antoine Grigis & Dimitri Papadopoulos Orfanos

  12. Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, UK

    Penny Gowland

  13. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy CCM, Charité—Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany

    Andreas Heinz & Henrik Walter

  14. Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Braunschweig, Germany

    Bernd Ittermann

  15. Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, INSERM U A10 “Trajectoires développementales en psychiatrie”, Paris, France

    Jean-Luc Martinot, Marie-Laure Paillère & Eric Artiges

  16. Université Paris-Saclay, Ecole Normale supérieure Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Centre Borelli, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Jean-Luc Martinot, Marie-Laure Paillère & Eric Artiges

  17. AP-HP.Sorbonne Université, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France

    Marie-Laure Paillère

  18. Psychiatry Department 91G16, Orsay Hospital, Orsay, France

    Eric Artiges

  19. Institute of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, University Medical Center Schleswig Holstein, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany

    Frauke Nees

  20. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Centre Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Luise Poustka

  21. Department of Psychiatry and Neuroimaging Center, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Juliane H. Fröhner & Michael N. Smolka

  22. School of Psychology and Global Brain Health Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Robert Whelan

  23. PONS Research Group, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Campus Charite Mitte, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany

    Gunter Schumann

  24. Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany

    Gunter Schumann

  25. Institute for Science and Technology of Brain-inspired Intelligence (ISTBI), Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China

    Gunter Schumann

Authors
  1. Matthew Price
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  2. Matthew Albaugh
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  3. Sage Hahn
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  4. Anthony C. Juliano
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Contributions

MP: conceptualized the study, conducted the primary analyses, and drafted the majority of the paper. MA: contributed to the conceptualization of the study, provided critical resources for interpreting the data, and assisted in drafting the paper. S. Hahn: contributed to the analyses and creating figures for the paper, and provided substantial guidance on the analysis. ACJ: provided and assisted in analyzing the data and assisted in drafting the paper. NF: contributed to the conceptualization of the study, provided critical resources for interpreting the data, and assisted in drafting the paper. ZMFB: critically revised the paper. ACL: critically revised the paper. KS-C: critically revised the paper. BC: critically revised the paper, provided analytic resources, and aided in interpreting the paper. AP: critically revised the paper and provided meaningful interpretation of the data. KP: critically revised the paper. NA: provided substantial guidance on the analysis. TB: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. ALWB: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. EBQ: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. SD: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. HF: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. AG: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. PG: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. AH: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. BI: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. J-LM: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. M-LP: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. EA: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. FN: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. DPO: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. LP: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. S. Hohmann: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. JHF: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. MNS: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. HW: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. RW: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. GS: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published. HG: reviewed early conceptualization of the study, substantially contributed to the revision of the paper and interpretation, reviewed the paper, and offered final approval of the version to be published.

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Price, M., Albaugh, M., Hahn, S. et al. Examination of the association between exposure to childhood maltreatment and brain structure in young adults: a machine learning analysis. Neuropsychopharmacol. 46, 1888–1894 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-021-00987-7

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