The amygdala is vulnerable to stress-dependent disruptions in neural development. at each age on amygdala thalamic or caudate volume. Severity of exposure to adversity across age accounted for 27% of the variance in right amygdala volume. Peak sensitivity occurred at 10-11 years of age and importance of exposure at this time was highly significant based on permutation checks (p=0.003). The regression model showed that exposure during this sensitive period resulted in steep dose-response function with maximal response to actually modest levels of exposure. Subjects in the highest exposure quartile (MACE-11 range 11 – 54) experienced a 9.1% higher right amygdala volume than subjects in the lowest exposure quartile (MACE-11 < 3.5). No associations emerged between age of exposure and volume of remaining Liquiritin amygdala or bilateral caudate or thalamus. Severity of adversity experienced at age 10-11 contributed to larger right but not remaining amygdala volume in adulthood. Results provide initial evidence the amygdala may have a developmental sensitive period in preadolescence. as control constructions that should be less susceptible to periadolescent stress because of the developmental trajectory and lower glucocorticoid receptor denseness (34-36). 2 Materials and Methods 2 1 Participants The study was authorized by the Harvard Medical School Cambridge Hospital and McLean Hospital IRBs. Subjects offered informed written consent and were reimbursed $100 for his or her time. Two organizations were enrolled: 18 longitudinal participants with early and continued life stress (ELS: 8M/10F 29.33 years) and 33 cross-sectional healthy controls (HC: 9M/24F 23.43 years) with no or very low exposure to childhood maltreatment and no history of psychopathology. HC subjects were participants in a larger study of maltreatment-related effects on psychopathology and neurobiology. We were aware when designing this study that HC subjects would be about 6 years more youthful than ELS subjects as HC subjects needed to be between 20-25 years Liquiritin of age at the time of recruitment into the initial study. We concluded that this difference would be suitable as amygdala volume should be stable within the age range of the sample (5). Moreover if volume did decline slightly with age then this would become tolerable as it would bias results in the opposite direction given our prediction of higher amygdala volume LIMK2 in the older ELS group. ELS participants were 1st recruited as Liquiritin babies (8.5±5.6 weeks) for a study on interpersonal risk factors and child development (37). The initial cohort consisted of 76 families who have been at or below 200% of federal poverty line. Considerable home and lab-based observations of mother-infant dyads were carried out to characterize the quality of maternal caregiving and infant attachment. Cognitive affective and physical development was assessed during multiple waves in infancy child years and late adolescence (age 20 years) (37-39) having a 74% follow-up rate. At age 29 33 participants were relocated and screened for inclusion in the study. Eighteen ELS adults met inclusion criteria and participated in the MRI study. Participants in the ELS group were quite representative of the larger longitudinal cohort from which they were Liquiritin recruited and whose developmental results have been well characterized from infancy to adulthood (e.g. 37-39). Specifically ELS participants did not differ from the larger cohort in family demographic characteristics (effect sizes: family income μ = .04 ns; gender … = .14 ns; mother single parent ??= .02 ns; mother high school only … = .03 ns; ethnic minority status … = .05 = .002) but not maternal overprotection (= .31) (Table 2). Number 1 Retrospectively reported severity of exposure to child years maltreatment during different child years age groups in longitudinally-followed participants with early existence stress versus healthy settings. Table 2 Self-report steps of parental care and current symptomatology (imply±standard deviation) for participants in the healthy control (HC) and adversity (ELS) groupsa. In support of our 1st hypothesis the ELS group reported higher levels of perceived stress in the past month than HC (= .004) and more current symptoms of panic (= .008) and anger-hostility (< .001) (Table 2). 3 2 Neuroimaging 3.2 Child years Adversity and Amygdala Volume Consistent with the second hypothesis mixed effect models showed that there was a significant effect of group (F(1 46 = 4.48 p < 0.04) on amygdala volume. There was also an.