{"doi":"10.1016/j.bpsgos.2024.100312","title":"Childhood Maltreatment and Amygdala-Mediated Anxiety and Posttraumatic Stress Following Adult Trauma","abstract":"Background: Childhood abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual) is associated with aberrant connectivity of the amygdala, a key threat-processing region. Heightened amygdala activity also predicts adult anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, as do experiences of childhood abuse. The current study explored whether amygdala resting-state functional connectivity may explain the relationship between childhood abuse and anxiety and PTSD symptoms following trauma exposure in adults. Methods: = 152, mean age [SD] = 32.61 [10.35] years; women = 57.2%) completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. PTSD and anxiety symptoms were assessed 6 months posttrauma. Seed-to-voxel analyses evaluated the association between childhood abuse and amygdala resting-state functional connectivity. A mediation model evaluated the potential mediating role of amygdala connectivity in the relationship between childhood abuse and posttrauma anxiety and PTSD. Results: = 0.065; 95% CI, 0.013-0.130; SE = 0.030), but not PTSD. A secondary mediation analysis investigating depression as an outcome was not significant. Conclusions: Amygdala-precuneus connectivity may be an underlying neural mechanism by which childhood abuse increases risk for anxiety following adult trauma. Specifically, this heightened connectivity may reflect attentional vigilance for threat or a tendency toward negative self-referential thoughts. Findings suggest that childhood abuse may contribute to longstanding upregulation of attentional vigilance circuits, which makes one vulnerable to anxiety-related symptoms in adulthood.","journal":"Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science","year":2024,"id":436531,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":11,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9585,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":336930,"name":"Michael T. Liuzzi","orcid":"0000-0001-6632-0697","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":451097,"name":"Ashley A. Huggins","orcid":"0000-0001-7936-2116","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":644585,"name":"E. Kate Webb","orcid":"0000-0002-4993-7836","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":284504,"name":"Jacklynn M. Fitzgerald","orcid":"0000-0002-6076-4067","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":722152,"name":"Jessica Krukowski","orcid":"0000-0003-1921-7480","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":284500,"name":"Terri A. deRoon‐Cassini","orcid":"0000-0002-9485-0625","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":284520,"name":"Christine L. Larson","orcid":"0000-0002-1359-6080","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1079724,"name":"Farah Harb","orcid":"0000-0002-1653-8767","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":78,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:00:16.989773Z","pmid":"38711866","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}