Investigating the impact of stressful life events on neuroanatomy across adolescence

Abstract

Early-life stress elevates the risk of developing neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the mechanism underlying this vulnerability, and how they contribute to sex differences in these disorders, remain to be understood. Here, we use multivariate brain-based predictive models to examine how the number, positive or negative appraisal, and impact of adolescent stressful life events reported either by the youth or their caregivers are reflected in neuroanatomy (cortical thickness, surface area, cortical and subcortical gray matter volume, and T1 intensity measures). We used data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study at 2-year (N = 6,301, age 11-12), 4-year (N = 5,000, age 13-14) and 6-year (N = 3,226, age 15-16) follow-up time points to examine the sex-independent and sex-specific neural correlates of stressful life events. Our analyses showed mostly non-significant associations between stressful life events and neuroanatomy. However, we did find that the number of positively appraised stressful life events reported by the caregivers at the 4-year follow-up was significantly associated with cortical thickness, independent of sex, and with surface area in females only. Across three developmental timepoints, seven neuroanatomical measures, two reporting perspectives, and both sex-independent and sex-specific analyses, we show that the number, appraisal, and impact of stressful life events are largely not reflected in adolescent neuroanatomy.