Childhood maltreatment linked to white matter differences and adult post-traumatic symptoms

A study in Molecular Psychiatry examined associations between childhood maltreatment, white matter microstructure and adult post-traumatic symptoms in 299 participants from the Injury and Traumatic Stress (INTRuST) consortium. Participants were 53% male, with a mean age of 35.69 years. The sample included 56 individuals with PTSD, 41 of whom also had mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), a further 107 with mTBI, and 136 controls. Researchers assessed maltreatment using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and extracted diffusion measures from MRI of major white matter tracts.

Greater maltreatment severity was associated with lower mean diffusivity (MD) and axial diffusivity (AD), independently of PTSD or mTBI. Statistical mediation was identified particularly in the corpus callosum and superior longitudinal fasciculus. Reported indirect-effect coefficients for PTSD symptoms were 0.022 for MD and 0.019–0.034 for AD; corresponding coefficients for post-concussive symptoms were 0.028–0.040 and 0.032–0.047.

These findings suggest that childhood maltreatment may be relevant to interpreting white matter differences in adults with post-traumatic symptoms. However, observational associations and statistical mediation do not establish a causal neurobiological pathway. The supplied abstract does not report confidence intervals for the indirect effects, and the results do not establish a clinical role for diffusion MRI in individual risk prediction or treatment selection.