Cognitive and affective neurodevelopment in youth exposed to deprivation and threat

Early life adversity (ELA) is associated with notable negative consequences across development. Experiences of deprivation may affect neurocognitive development, while experiences of threat may alter emotion processing. Deprivation and threat may also differentially influence reward processing. However, unique consequences of deprivation and threat beyond low family resources are debated.

We employed an exposure vs. control data analytic approach to isolate deprivation and threat influences from socioeconomic resources. Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD^®) Study youth exposed to neither deprivation nor threat (N=2408-2962) were matched to youth exposed to deprivation-only (N=638-721), threat-only (N=198-232), or threat non-exclusively (threat+: N=382-464) based on family income, parental education, race/ethnicity, sex, and age. Multivariate analyses were used to distinguish each ELA group from their respective control groups in the neurocognitive domain (resting-state connectomic maturation, cognitive task performance, and cortical grey matter thickness at two timepoints) and in the neuroaffective domain (nucleus accumbens and caudate activation to reward anticipation and amygdala and insula activation to fearful faces).

In the neurocognitive domain, similar latent variables (LVs) differentiated the deprivation and threat+ groups from their respective matched control groups. This LV corresponded to neurocognitive maturation, loading positively on cortical functional maturation and task performance, and negatively on cortical grey matter thickness. This LV was weaker in the deprivation and threat+ groups compared to controls. In the neuroaffective domain, no significant LVs were found.

Both threat and deprivation exposure during childhood may delay neurocognitive development in early adolescence beyond their co-occurrence with low socioeconomic resources.