Child maltreatment is a major public health problem. In addition to the risk of physical injury or death, early maltreatment is associated with impairments in social competence, emotional regulation and cognition, as well as to an increased risk for the development of anxiety, mood, and addiction disorders later in life. While it has been assumed that these vulnerabilities reflect impacts on neurodevelopment, practical and ethical concerns prevent studying these associations during early human development. Yet, such data would aid attempts to intervene and reduce the mental health burden associated with these early adverse experiences. The present proposal addresses this problem by using a unique, naturalistic, nonhuman primate model of human childhood maltreatment. Interestingly, maltreatment is not just a human problem; it has been reported in nonhuman primates as well, with rates and types of maltreatment similar to those seen in human populations. This rhesus monkey model provides a means to characterize the long-term impact of infant maltreatment on neurodevelopment using neuroimaging technology. However, in order to accomplish this important goal, preliminary data using in vivo neuroimaging are needed to justify longitudinal analyses comparing abused and non-abused animals, and normative data on early development to determine where perturbations in neural structure and circuits occur as a consequence of early adverse experience. The overall hypothesis of this proposal is based on the argument that infant maltreatment, via a sustained sensitization of the stress response, disrupts normal neurodevelopment, including neural systems underlying the control of socioemotional behavior and stress physiology. There are two aims in this project, both of them applying cutting edge in vivo neuroimaging technology and approaches to study the organization of brain structure, connectivity and function in animals with different rearing experiences.
Aim 1 will define the long-term consequences of infant maltreatment on neurodevelopment, characterizing brain differences between monkeys with early exposure to infant abuse and non-abused controls as they transition from adolescence to adulthood.
Aim 2 will define normative changes in neurodevelopment in rhesus monkeys, from the early postnatal period until 18 months of age. Neurodevelopmental changes will be assessed for relationship to socioemotional development and physical growth. Significance Understanding the neurodevelopmental consequences of infant maltreatment in a closely related phylogenetic relative will provide the framework for defining the neurodevelopmental impact of human childhood maltreatment, a reference for understanding its role in the development of socioemotional problems and pathophysiology in children and adolescents, and aid the design of treatment plans seeking to limit the adverse consequences of childhood maltreatment. ? ? ? ? ?
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