Developmental Traumatology Part II: Brain Development.

Previous research indicates that maltreated children diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) exhibit changes in biological stress systems, potentially due to elevated catecholaminergic neurotransmitters and steroid hormones during childhood trauma, which may negatively impact brain development. In a study involving 44 maltreated children and adolescents with PTSD and 61 matched controls, participants underwent psychiatric and neuropsychological evaluations and anatomical MRI brain scans. The results showed that those with PTSD had smaller intracranial and cerebral volumes, a reduced midsagittal area of the corpus callosum (particularly in middle and posterior regions), and proportionally larger lateral ventricles compared to controls, even after adjusting for intracranial volume. Brain volume was positively linked to the age of PTSD trauma onset and negatively tied to the duration of abuse, while symptoms such as intrusive thoughts, avoidance, hyperarousal, or dissociation correlated positively with ventricular volume and negatively with brain volume and corpus callosum measures. A notable gender-by-diagnosis interaction revealed greater corpus callosum reduction in maltreated males with PTSD and a trend toward larger cerebral volume reduction compared to females, though the expected hippocampal volume decrease observed in adult PTSD was not found in these subjects. These findings suggest that severe stress from childhood maltreatment is associated with adverse brain development.