The maternal brain in women with a history of early-life maltreatment: an imagination-based fMRI study of conflictual versus pleasant interactions with children

Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience : JPN
Corinne NeukelSabine C Herpertz

Abstract

Early-life maltreatment has severe consequences for the affected individual, and it has an impact on the next generation. To improve understanding of the intergenerational effects of abuse, we investigated the consequences of early-life maltreatment on maternal sensitivity and associated brain mechanisms during mother-child interactions. In total, 47 mothers (22 with a history of physical and/or sexual childhood abuse and 25 without, all without current mental disorders) took part in a standardized real-life interaction with their 7- to 11-year-old child (not abused) and a subsequent functional imaging script-driven imagery task. Mothers with early-life maltreatment were less sensitive in real-life mother-child interactions, but while imagining conflictual interactions with their child, they showed increased activation in regions of the salience and emotion-processing network, such as the amygdala, insula and hippocampus. This activation pattern was in contrast to that of mothers without early-life maltreatment, who showed higher activations in those regions in response to pleasant mother-child interactions. Mothers with early-life maltreatment also showed reduced functional connectivity between regions of the salience and the ...Continue Reading

Citations

Jul 30, 2018·European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience·Corinne NeukelKatja Bertsch
Oct 11, 2020·Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology·Pilyoung Kim

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