Maltreatment effects on cognitive control functional connectivity across adolescence: Prospective links to young adult mental health

It is well established that childhood adversity is associated with both negative physical and mental health outcomes. Recent research posits that 1) there may be developmental periods for which the effects of adversity are most influential on brain development and 2) abuse and neglect may be associated with different developmental mechanisms linking psychopathology. This study used seven years of longitudinal data to investigate how abuse and neglect during three developmental periods (early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence), as well as chronicity of maltreatment across these developmental periods, are associated with young adult mental health outcomes (ages 20-21), and how changes in adolescent task-based functional connectivity during cognitive control (between ages 14-15 and 18-20 years) may mediate these associations. Hypothesized mediation models were tested via structural equation modeling (SEM). Significant indirect effects indicated that chronic abuse predicted higher depressive symptoms and higher substance use through stronger dACC-insula connectivity. In contrast, significant indirect effects revealed that neglect during adolescence predicted lower substance use and lower depressive symptoms through weaker dACC-insula connectivity. These results suggest that differential patterns of connectivity changes within the salience network during cognitive control may be associated with risk and resilience for future depression and substance use in young adulthood.