This work would also not have been possible without use of the @childmindinstitute.bsky.social Healthy Brain Network Study, as well as the Reproducible Brain Charts Project (reprobrainchart.github.io). Thank you to the teams involved in data collection, release, and preprocessing!

Huge thanks to the scientific team that made this study possible—the amazing @dylanggee.bsky.social, Taylor Keding, Allison Drew, and Emilie Ma, as well as wonderful collaborators @goliashf.bsky.social, @cieslakmatt.bsky.social, and @ted-satterthwaite.bsky.social. 🎊

Together, these findings suggest key roles for neural circuits related to stress regulation and memory in adapting to support optimal functioning after adversity exposure, and highlight the concordance of neural structure and function as an important indicator of individual risk and resilience! 🧠🌱

Exploratory analyses found that hippocampal-limbic network SFC also moderated the link between adversity and internalizing symptoms, but in the OPPOSITE direction of amygdala-vmPFC SFC—that is, the association between adversity and symptoms was weaker for youth with LOWER hippocampal-limbic SFC.

We found that the pattern of increased SFC was specific to the amygdala-vmPFC circuit, and also observed a significant effect of adversity in the hippocampal-limbic network circuit—specifically, adversity exposure was negatively associated with hippocampal-limbic SFC across development.

Next, we wanted to see if this pattern was specific to the amygdala-vmPFC circuit. To do this, we examined whether adversity moderated developmental change in SFC between the hippocampus/amygdala and the seven major functional networks.

Further, we found that stronger amgydala-vmPFC SFC buffered the association between adversity exposure and internalizing symptoms, such that the association between adversity exposure and internalizing symptoms was weaker for youth with stronger amygdala-vmPFC SFC.

We found that amygdala-vmPFC SFC differed among youth with exposure to high levels of adversity, such that amygdala-vmPFC SFC increased with age, in contrast to youth with lower levels of adversity exposure who did not show age-related change in this circuit.

Using the @childmindinstitute.bsky.social Healthy Brain Network sample, we examined how subcortical-cortical SFC was associated with adversity exposure across development, and whether SFC would moderate associations between adversity and clinical symptoms. 💭

Understanding how adversity exposure alters neurodevelopment is important for elucidating the neural underpinnings of risk for psychopathology. Structure-function coupling (SFC) indexes the correspondence between structural and functional connectomes, and is sensitive to developmental plasticity 🧠📈

... Jason Haberman, SadieZacharek, H. Hodges, Camila Caballero, Gillian Gold, Audrey Huang, Ashley Talton, and of course superstar mentor and scientist Dylan Gee! (8/8)

This was a huge team effort that would not have been possible without contributions from many folks over the years. Beyond grateful to all collaborators on this project:
Taylor Keding, Emily Cohodes, Sarah McCauley, Jasmyne Pierre, Paola Odriozola, Sahana Kribakaran... (7/8)

Our findings also highlight middle childhood as a period during which adversity may confer heightened risk for future mental health problems. Research into developmentally-informed interventions for youth during middle childhood may aid in offsetting adversity-related risk (6/8)

Together, these findings suggest that adversity exposure in middle childhood may potentiate systematic experience-dependent changes in white matter integrity throughout the brain, that differ by circuit function and intersect with ongoing circuit maturation (5/8)

Further, latent patterns of white matter tract integrity (indexed using quantitative anisotropy) linked with middle childhood adversity exposure were associated with trauma-related symptoms (4/8)

That is, our results suggest that middle childhood adversity exposure may be simultaneously linked with higher integrity in sensorimotor tracts (such as the corticospinal tract), and lower integrity in cortico-cortical tracts (such as the superior longitudinal fasciculus) (3/8)

Using a multivariate approach, we identified a systematic pattern whereby adversity exposure during middle childhood was differentially linked with white matter tract integrity according to whether the tract supported sensorimotor or cortico-cortical communication (2/8)