Connectome-based predictive modeling analysis of infant cue impacts from early childhood trauma

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Abstract Submission 

Nolan Brady¹, Alexander Dufford², Shannon Powers³, Genevieve Patterson³, Jenna Chin³, Seungwook Lee⁴, Tom Yeh⁴, Pilyoung Kim³

¹University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, ²Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, ³University of Denver, Denver, CO, ⁴University of Colorado - Boulder, Boulder, CO

Nolan Brady  
University of Colorado Boulder
Boulder, CO

Alexander Dufford  
Oregon Health & Science University
Portland, OR

Shannon Powers  
University of Denver
Denver, CO

Genevieve Patterson, M.A.  
University of Denver
Denver, CO

Jenna Chin  
University of Denver
Denver, CO

Seungwook Lee  
University of Colorado - Boulder
Boulder, CO

Tom Yeh, PhD  
University of Colorado - Boulder
Boulder, CO

Pilyoung Kim, PhD  
University of Denver
Denver, CO

Trauma exposure across the lifespan is associated with an increased risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and mood disorders. During the transition to parenthood, exposure to trauma was also associated with altered brain responses to infant cues, which can lead to suboptimal parenting. However, how trauma-related brain adaptations affect functional connectivity (FC) associated with infant cues remains largely unknown. In this study, we aimed to assess the impact of trauma during childhood on maternal functional brain connectivity in response to infant crying sounds. Using connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM), we identified brain network connectivity patterns associated with trauma (Shen et al., 2017). Analyzing traumatic events in distinct childhood intervals and adulthood enhances our understanding of which developmental periods are more susceptible to lasting functional brain changes related to infant cry responses. Past research suggests that heightened plasticity in early childhood makes individuals more prone to long-term neurological alterations due to various types of events, including trauma (Kim, 2021). Our hypothesis posited that early childhood trauma would have a more robust association with task-related connectivity.

Birthing parents (N=80) had early postpartum fMRI scans (M = 1.33 months, SD = 1.01) for an infant cry task involving their own infant crying, another infant's cry, or pattern-matched white noise (Olsavsky et al., 2021). Trauma was assessed by combining Life Events Checklist (LEC) and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) scores in early and middle childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The LEC and ACEs data were combined for a more comprehensive evaluation of the subject's past trauma. fMRI data underwent preprocessing with fMRIPrep and XCPD (Esteban et al., 2019, Mehta et al., 2023), followed by calculating functional connectivity matrices (268x268) using the Shen atlas (Shen et al., 2013). These matrices informed a Connectome-based Predictive model examining brain-wide task-related FC and combined LEC/ACEs scores via leave-one-out cross-validation with a feature selection threshold of p < 0.01 (Shen et al., 2017).

The CPM analysis suggests that only early childhood (defined as 0-5 years of age) traumatic events were significantly associated with the infant cry task functional connectivity (p = 0.007, r = 0.2983, MSE = 31.86). The combined LEC/ACEs scores measured in our sample had a mean (M) of 3.44 and a standard deviation (SD) of 5.84. The data represent the number of traumatic experiences (scored 0-30) that occurred at each developmental period. The significant edges for the model indicated that FC between the salience and frontoparietal network was positively associated with more frequent early childhood trauma. Conversely, the default mode network (DMN) FC was negatively associated with increased early childhood trauma. The FC results indicate that with increased traumatic events in early childhood, there is more functional connectivity between the salience and frontoparietal networks and less functional connectivity between the DMN and the motor, visual association, and subcortical networks. Reduced FC within the DMN was also indicative of a higher number of traumatic events in early childhood.

While studies have examined the activation patterns associated with the infant cry task, we examined how task-related functional connectivity during the task was associated with traumatic events in childhood. Greater traumatic events were associated with reductions in DMN connectivity and decreased insula-to-limbic network connectivity. Elucidating the brain-wide functional connectivity patterns associated with childhood trauma is a critical step forward in understanding potential neural mechanisms underlying the intergenerational transmission of childhood trauma.

Neurodevelopmental/ Early Life (eg. ADHD, autism) ¹

Early life, Adolescence, Aging

Classification and Predictive Modeling

Connectivity (eg. functional, effective, structural) ²

Development

Machine Learning

Trauma