The association between childhood maltreatment and neural functioning during a working memory task in adults with internalizing disorders

TL;DR

Childhood maltreatment is linked to reduced brain activity in regions important for working memory in adults with internalizing disorders.

Contribution

This study identifies a novel association between childhood maltreatment severity and decreased dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation during working memory tasks in clinical populations.

Findings

Childhood maltreatment severity is negatively associated with left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation during working memory tasks.

Higher maltreatment severity correlates with poorer working memory task performance in adults with internalizing disorders.

Abstract

Childhood maltreatment is pervasive – with an estimated 1 in 4 children experiencing abuse or neglect at some point in their lifetime. Exposure to childhood maltreatment has been associated with detrimental neurodevelopmental changes to brain structure and function in stress-sensitive regions and regions with extended developmental periods. Such regions include the frontoparietal regions (e.g., middle frontal gyrus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), which are vital for cognitive processes, including working memory; however, few studies have investigated how childhood maltreatment impacts the neural substrates implicated in supporting cognitive functioning. The present study investigated the potential influence of childhood maltreatment on neural functioning in adults (n = 111; aged 34.53 ± 9 years) diagnosed with internalizing disorders, with varied levels of childhood maltreatment severity, who completed a working memory task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Voxel-wise activation data were extracted through an a-priori defined mask of regions relevant to working memory to evaluate neural activity during the task. Linear regression analyses revealed that childhood maltreatment severity was negatively associated with left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation during the working memory task, controlling for current symptoms of psychopathology. Childhood maltreatment was also associated with poorer working memory task performance. These findings suggest that childhood maltreatment severity is associated with decreased dorsolateral prefrontal cortex engagement during working memory function in a transdiagnostic sample. These results further the understanding of factors influencing differences in cognitive functioning and, thus, symptom presentation in clinical populations.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11682-026-01120-2.

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