Abstract

Objective: Does exposure to prenatal and postnatal adversity have the same long-term effects on brain development in humans?

Methods: We examined whether these two types of exposures differed from their demographically matched controls on a frontal EEG alpha/delta ratio score, a proxy of brain maturation.

Results

Young adults born at extremely low birth weight (prenatal adversity; N = 64, M_age = 23.14 years, SD_age = 1.26 years) had a lower alpha/delta ratio score compared to normal birth weight controls (N = 76, M_age = 23.60 years, SD_age = 1.09 years), while youth exposed to child maltreatment (postnatal adversity; N = 39, M_age = 16.18 years, SD_age = 1.15) had a higher alpha/delta ratio compared to controls (N = 23, M_age = 16.00 years, SD_age = 1.50 years).

Conclusions

Our results suggest that being exposed to pre- and post-natal adversity may have different long-term consequences on brain development. We speculate that these differences might be associated with some of the different functional outcomes known to characterize each type of adverse experience.

中文翻译：

---

大脑，中断：产前和产后逆境幸存者的 alpha/delta EEG 比率

摘要

目的：暴露于产前和产后逆境对人类大脑发育的长期影响是否相同？

方法：我们检查了这两种类型的暴露在额叶脑电图 alpha/delta 比率评分（大脑成熟的代表）上是否与其人口统计匹配的对照不同。

结果

_与正常出生_体重对照组 （N =  76 ，M_年龄= 23.60 岁，SD_年龄= 1.09 岁），而遭受儿童虐待的青少年（产后逆境；N  = 39，M_年龄= 16.18 岁，SD_年龄= 1.15）与对照组相比具有更高的 alpha/delta 比率（N  = 23，M_年龄= 16.00 岁，SD_年龄= 1.50 年）。

结论

我们的研究结果表明，暴露于产前和产后逆境可能对大脑发育产生不同的长期影响。我们推测，这些差异可能与已知表征每种不良经历的一些不同功能结果有关。