Functional imaging correlates of childhood trauma: A qualitative review of past research and emerging trends

Prediction of childhood maltreatment and subtypes with personalized functional connectome of large-scale brain networks

Childhood maltreatment (CM) has a long impact on physical and mental health of children. However, the neural underpinnings of CM are still unclear. In this study, we aimed to establish the associations between functional connectome of large‐scale brain networks and influences of CM evaluated through Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) at the individual level based on resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging data of 215 adults. A novel individual functional mapping approach was employed to identify subject‐specific functional networks and functional network connectivities (FNCs). A connectome‐based predictive modeling (CPM) was used to estimate CM total and subscale scores using individual FNCs. The CPM established with FNCs can well predict CM total scores and subscale scores including emotion abuse, emotion neglect, physical abuse, physical neglect, and sexual abuse. These FNCs primarily involve default mode network, fronto‐parietal network, visual network, limbic network, motor network, dorsal and ventral attention networks, and different networks have distinct contributions to predicting CM and subtypes. Moreover, we found that CM showed age and sex effects on individual functional connections. Taken together, the present findings revealed that different types of CM are associated with different atypical neural networks which provide new clues to understand the neurobiological consequences of childhood adversity.