Maltreatment predicts centiles of individual variation from normative brain growth in children

Abstract

Abstract Exposure to maltreatment in childhood is posited to profoundly disrupt brain development with adverse consequences for cognitive development and health across the lifespan. Here we use “brain charts” from the largest available neuroimaging database to quantify individual brain volumes relative to normative brain growth distributions in 299 children, aged 3 to 13 years, including 123 children with clinically verified maltreatment exposure. Using magnetic resonance imaging, we obtain volumes of cortical grey, total white, and subcortical grey matter and derive chart-based centiles for each child and tissue type. In our sample, children with maltreatment exposure exhibit lower mean brain centiles across tissues than unexposed children. Associations of greater maltreatment severity with lower brain centiles do not survive correction for multiple comparisons. Lower brain centiles are associated with lower intellectual ability and more behavioural problems. These findings provide evidence for widespread differences in brain structure associated with childhood maltreatment and their relevance to intellectual ability and behavioural functioning.