Associations Between Childhood Abuse Severity and Fear Learning Processes in Adulthood: Assessing the Role of Vagal...

Childhood abuse is known to be a vulnerability factor for psychopathology in adulthood, which is posited to occur, at least in part, through influencing fear learning processes. This study tested a model by which the severity of childhood abuse had indirect effects on fear learning processes via vagal signaling as indexed by heart rate variability (HRV).

A sample of N =123 individuals assigned female at birth ( Mage =22.99; 35.8% Hispanic; 45.5% Asian, 27.6% White, 7.3% Other) completed a single study visit during which they completed a fear learning task where physiological measurements were collected. Exposure to childhood abuse was assessed using the abuse subscales of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire.

Results found that higher severity of childhood abuse was significantly associated with poorer fear/safety discrimination (β = -0.23 , p =.01), and lower resting HRV was significantly associated with higher initial startle during fear conditioning (β=-0.17 , p =.047). Notably, a probe of the relationship between the abuse subscales (physical, sexual, and emotional) and fear/safety discrimination found only sexual abuse was significantly associated with poorer fear/safety discrimination (β = -0.21 , p =.022).

Findings suggest that fear/safety discrimination impairments may be an important physiological marker for survivors of childhood abuse, and that sexual abuse may be more strongly associated with impairments in fear/safety discrimination than other early abuse exposures. A greater understanding of the underlying factors contributing to psychopathology risk in this population is needed.