Childhood Adversity May Affect Processing In The Brain's Reward Pathways

ScienceDaily (July 16, 2009) — New research shows that childhood adversity is associated with diminished neural activity in brain regions implicated in the anticipation of possible rewards.

Scientists at Harvard University used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor brain activity as participants played a game involving cues that predicted monetary rewards and penalties.

"We found that, in comparison to community controls, young adults who had experienced childhood adversity showed weaker responses to reward-predicting cues in left hemisphere regions of the basal ganglia, a part of the brain that is important for orchestrating goal-directed actions," says Diego Pizzagalli, the John and Ruth Hazel Associate Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Psychology at Harvard.

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