In this thesis a literature review was conducted to map the results of earlier neuroimaging studies in minors who experienced childhood psychological trauma. Next, three different structural... Show moreIn this thesis a literature review was conducted to map the results of earlier neuroimaging studies in minors who experienced childhood psychological trauma. Next, three different structural neuroimaging techniques were employed to study the effects of childhood sexual trauma in youth .Main findings:1. Neuroimaging studies in traumatised children and adolescents are scarce and heterogeneous in design, in particular with regard to the sample studied and type of trauma.2. The results of structural neuroimaging studies in traumatised minors differ from those in adult populations, in particular with regard to findings on hippocampus and corpus callosum (CC).3. Paralleling the inconsistent findings on hippocampal volume reduction in traumatised minors, our VBM-study did not show differences between groups for hippocampal volume.4. VBM showed smaller volumes of key regions of the limbic system (ACC, amygdala) in the CSA-related PTSD group compared to controls.5. Adolescents with sexual abuse-related PTSD show no abnormalities in cortical thickness, in line with findings in adults. 6. Adolescents with CSA-related PTSD show less integrity of parts of the CC compared to healthy non-traumatised controls.7. Our structural neuroimaging studies showed limited associations with trauma symptomatology, in line with findings in studies in minors. Show less
Childhood Sexual Abuse related posttraumatic stress disorder (CSA-related PTSD), and anxiety and depressive disorders (clinical depression) have profound though differential impact on adolescent... Show moreChildhood Sexual Abuse related posttraumatic stress disorder (CSA-related PTSD), and anxiety and depressive disorders (clinical depression) have profound though differential impact on adolescent emotion regulation, attention bias and emotional face processing. We hypothesized increased negative attention bias for emotional faces and altered brain functioning in CSA-related PTSD compared to internalizing disorders and healthy controls in a cross-sectional fMRI study using an emotional face processing task in 19 12-20-year-old adolescents with CSA-related PTSD, 26 with internalizing disorders and 26 healthy controls.Outcome measures were reaction times, subjective ratings of emotional faces, and brain activation patterns for whole brain and for regions of interest. Compared to both other groups adolescents with CSA-related PTSD showed significantly slower reaction times and the highest subjective rating of emotional faces. On whole brain and ROI level, no significant group differences were found. Self-reported depressive, posttraumatic or dissociative symptoms were not associated with differences in task-related brain activity. Results support the hypothesis of increased negative attention bias for fearful and neutral faces in CSA-related PTSD versus both other groups. The absence of neural differences might indicate a brain-behavior neuro-imaging gap to be closed by larger and IQ matched samples or more sensitive paradigms to elicit emotion processing. Show less
