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Early Childhood Stress Affects Brain's Response to Rewards

[Source: Science Daily]

socialcogA Duke University-led study has pinpointed how early childhood stress affects the adult brain’s response to rewards. Their findings suggest a possible pathway by which childhood stress may increase risk of depression and other mental health problems in adulthood.

Many studies have connected early life stress to later mental health issues for adults, but little is understood about the reasons for this connection. The new study published in the current issue of Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the relations between early life stress and reward-related brain activity in adults.
Participants in the study were closely monitored beginning in kindergarten and then were scanned using brain imaging when they were adults. The participants were all part of the Fast Track Project, which in 1991 began tracking how children developed across their lives.
For this new study, researchers focused on the levels of stress that 72 subjects were exposed to early in development. At age 26, the study participants completed an
Read the Rest of this Study on Science Daily

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