Peer-reviewed article
Dimensions of early life adversity and accelerated biological aging in adolescents: an examination of fear-related mechanisms.
Cha L, Enders CK, Cleveland S, McLaughlin KA, Sumner JA ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examines how early life adversity in children affects their biological development and fear responses. Researchers measured 168 youth who had experienced either threatening events or deprivation (lack of resources), and tested how their brains and bodies responded to danger cues. The findings show that children exposed to threats have difficulty distinguishing between dangerous and safe situations, while children who experienced deprivation may actually learn these distinctions better. Threat-related adversity was linked to faster biological aging and greater brain activity in response to negative stimuli.
Key points
- Greater threat-related early life adversity was associated with impaired discrimination between danger and safety cues during fear conditioning and early extinction
- Only threat, not deprivation, was associated with greater left amygdala activation to negative stimuli
- Deprivation-related early life adversity related to enhanced danger-safety discrimination during late conditioning
- Threat-related early life adversity may correspond to heightened neural sensitivity to danger
- No evidence was found that fear responses explained the link between threat and accelerated biological aging
Limitations
The study cannot establish causal relationships between early life adversity and biological aging because the indirect pathway through fear responses was not significant. The findings are limited to a cross-sectional sample of 168 youth and may not generalize across different populations or cultural contexts.
Abstract
Early life adversity (ELA), characterized by threat (experiences involving threat of harm), and not deprivation (absence of expected environmental inputs), has been associated with accelerated biological aging in youth. Although understanding of underlying processes is limited, heightened fear responding is a candidate. In 168 youth, we tested whether threat- and deprivation-related ELA were associated with fear responses across multiple levels of analysis and whether fear responses explained links of threat with accelerated biological aging (advanced pubertal stage and epigenetic age). Youth and caregivers reported on youths' lifetime ELA experiences to compute threat and deprivation composites. Youth reported their pubertal maturation and provided saliva samples for epigenetic age estimation. Fear responses (indexed by skin conductance response [SCR], self-reported fear, and amygdala activation) were collected during a fear conditioning and extinction task (SCR, self-reported fear) and emotional stimulus viewing task (amygdala activation). Multilevel models revealed that greater threat was associated with impaired discrimination between danger and safety cues during conditioning based on self-report and during early extinction based on SCR. Greater deprivation related to enhanced danger-safety discrimination during late conditioning based on SCR. Additionally, only threat was associated with greater left amygdala activation to negative (vs. neutral) stimuli. No evidence of indirect effects was found linking threat with accelerated biological aging. Results suggest that threat-related ELA may correspond to heightened neural sensitivity to danger and reduced danger-safety discrimination, whereas deprivation-related ELA may enhance learning of danger vs. safety cues. Findings indicate potential differential associations between threat- and deprivation-related ELA and fear-related processes.