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The roles of early-life adversity and rumination in neural response to emotional faces amongst anxious and depressed adults

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2018

Amy T. Peters ,
Katie L. Burkhouse ,
Kerry L. Kinney  and
K. Luan Phan
Amy T. Peters*
Affiliation:
Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, Boston, MA, USA Harvard Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, Boston, MA, USA
Katie L. Burkhouse
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Psychiatry, Chicago, IL, USA
Kerry L. Kinney
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Psychiatry, Chicago, IL, USA
K. Luan Phan
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Psychiatry, Chicago, IL, USA
*
Author for correspondence: Amy T. Peters, E-mail: amy.peters@mgh.harvard.edu; amytpeters@gmail.com
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Abstract

Background

Early-life adversity (ELA) is a risk factor for internalizing psychopathology (IP). ELA is also linked to alterations in neural phenotypes of emotion processing and maladaptive emotion regulatory strategies, such as ruminative brooding, in adulthood. We therefore expected that ELA would predict cortical brain activation to emotional faces in transdiagnostic IP and in turn, mediate the extent of rumination amongst patients with IPs and ELA (IP + ELA).

Method

One hundred and thirty-two individuals, including 102 treatment-seeking adults with heterogeneous IPs and 30 healthy controls (HCs) performed an Emotional Face-Matching Task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Whole-brain analyses compared HC (n = 30), IP (n = 52), and IP + ELA (n = 50) neural responses to emotional (angry, fearful, happy, and sad) faces v. shapes, controlling for depression and anxiety symptoms. Parameter estimates of activation were extracted for significant between-group differences and tested as a mediator of ruminative brooding in IP + ELA.

Results

IP + ELA demonstrated increased activation in the superior frontal gyrus and anterior cingulate cortex (fear), superior parietal lobule, precuneus, posterior cingulate, and inferior temporal gyrus (fear only), and cuneus (fear and angry). These regions were preferentially correlated with ruminative brooding in IP + ELA, many of which mediated the link between IP + ELA and ruminative brooding.

Conclusions

Results provide evidence that ELA history amongst IP patients augments engagement of brain regions involved in emotion processing, above and beyond what is accounted for by current symptoms. Though longitudinal designs are needed, alterations in the neural correlates of maladaptive processing of socio-emotional information may be a common pathway by which ELA poses risk for psychopathology.

Keywords

Anxietydepressionearly childhood adversityemotion processingfunctional neuroimagingrumination
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 49 , Issue 13 , October 2019 , pp. 2267 - 2278
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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