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. 2024 Jan 22:29:100608.
doi: 10.1016/j.ynstr.2024.100608. eCollection 2024 Mar.

Frontal cortical volume deficits as enduring evidence of childhood abuse in community adults with AUD and HIV infection comorbidity

Stephanie A Sassoon  1   2 , Rosemary Fama  1   2 , Kilian M Pohl  2 , Adolf Pfefferbaum  1   2 , Edith V Sullivan  2
Affiliations

Frontal cortical volume deficits as enduring evidence of childhood abuse in community adults with AUD and HIV infection comorbidity

Stephanie A Sassoon et al. Neurobiol Stress. .

Abstract

Background: Childhood abuse is an underappreciated source of stress, associated with adverse mental and physical health consequences. Childhood abuse has been directly associated with risky behavior thereby increasing the likelihood of alcohol misuse and risk of HIV infection, conditions associated with brain structural and functional deficits. Here, we examined the neural and behavioral correlates of childhood trauma history in alcohol use disorder (AUD), HIV infection (HIV), and their comorbidity (AUD+HIV).

Methods: Occurrence of childhood trauma was evaluated by retrospective interview. Cortical (frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital), subcortical (hippocampus, amygdala), and regional frontal volumes were derived from structural MRI, adjusted for intracranial volume and age. Test scores of executive functioning, attention/working memory, verbal/visual learning, verbal/visual memory, and motor speed functional domains were standardized on age and education of a laboratory control group.

Results: History of childhood abuse was associated with smaller frontal lobe volumes regardless of diagnosis. For frontal subregional volumes, history of childhood abuse was selectively associated with smaller orbitofrontal and supplementary motor volumes. In participants with a child abuse history, poorer verbal/visual memory performance was associated with smaller orbitofrontal and frontal middle volumes, whereas in those without childhood abuse, poorer verbal/visual memory performance was associated with smaller orbitofrontal, frontal superior, and supplemental motor volumes.

Conclusions: Taken together, these results comport with and extend the findings that childhood abuse is associated with brain and behavioral sequelae in AUD, HIV, and AUD+HIV comorbidity. Further, these findings suggest that sequelae of abuse in childhood may be best conceptualized as a spectrum disorder as significant deficits may be present in those who may not meet criteria for a formal trauma-related diagnosis yet may be suffering enduring stress effects on brain structural and functional health.

Keywords: Alcohol use disorder; Brain structure; Comorbidities; HIV; MRI; Trauma; abuse.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
7 Frontal cortical subregions.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Adjusted means and standard errors of frontal volumes in groups with and without a history of childhood abuse; main effects of childhood abuse history, F(1, 286) = 4.71, p = 0.03, and HIV status, F(1, 286) = 11.90, p < 0.001, on frontal lobe volumes.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Adjusted means and standard errors of orbitofrontal and supplemental motor volumes in groups with and without a history of childhood abuse; main effect of childhood abuse history on orbitofrontal volumes, F(1, 286) = 4.09, p = 0.04, and main effect of childhood abuse history on supplemental motor volumes, F(1, 286) = 3.98, p = 0.047.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Verbal/visual memory composite and motor speed composite adjusted z-score means and standard errors in groups with and without a history of childhood abuse; Interaction of AUD history and childhood abuse history on verbal/visual memory, F(1, 276) = 3.77, p = 0.05, marginal main effect of childhood abuse history on motor speed, F(1, 272) = 3.60, p = 0.06.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Dissociation correlations among AUD with and without abuse history.
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