Posted on July 22, 2009

Childhood adversity can have an impact on a person in ways beyond what is visibly noticeable. According to a new Science Daily release, research suggests that this adversity is associated with diminished neural activity in brain regions that have been implicated in the anticipation of possible rewards.

To gather data, scientists at Harvard University relied on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor brain activity as participants engaged in a game that involved cues. These cues predicted monetary rewards and penalties.

“We found that, in comparison to community controls, young adults who had experienced childhood adversity showed weaker responses to reward-predicting cues in left hemisphere regions of the basal ganglia, a part of the brain that is important for orchestrating goal-directed actions,” said Diego Pizzagalli in the Science Daily. Pizzagalli is the John and Ruth Hazel Associate Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Psychology at Harvard.

During the study, the group of individuals who had experienced childhood adversity had two structures in the left basal ganglia that were nonresponsive to reward cues. This differed from what researchers saw in the control group. At the same time, there was no difference between the groups when penalties or no incentives were predicted.

In contrast to previous studies that suggest the link between childhood adversity and depression might be related to dysfunction in brain regions that are involved in regulating stress, this study points to another potential link. By weakening the brain’s response to rewards, childhood adversity may contribute to other elements of depression, such as apathy, low motivation, and a reduced ability to experience pleasure.

Such research has been undertaken in an effort to identify specific regions of the brain that impact certain types of psychological disorders. According to Pizzagalli, while childhood adversity can increase the risk for depression, it is not a one-to-one relationship. Genetics and social support can also counteract the risk.