Enduring Neurobehavioral Consequences of Early Life Trauma

New York University School Of Medicine, New York NY

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Summary: Early life adversity, especially abuse from a caregiver, is known to produce major, lifelong changes in behavior, cognition, and the brain. Victims of childhood abuse suffer from a greater incidence of addiction, crime, physical illness, and psychiatric diseases related to related to anxiety, depression, anger, and antisocial tendencies. These psychopathologies, and childhood trauma itself, are also reliably linked to sleep disturbances in adults and children in both humans and animal models. Although the mechanisms or developmental contributions of these sleep disturbances are not known, recent clinical evidence suggests that treating sleep in adulthood produces improvements in several related psychiatric disorders. Here, I will explore the impact of developmental trauma on sleep physiology and the contribution of specific sleep impairments on cognitive/emotional outcomes across the lifespan using an animal model of childhood abuse. I hypothesize that early life abuse will produce a lifelong disturbance in sleep and related circuit function, and that these disturbances contribute to cognitive/emotional pathology. My preliminary results provide evidence that early trauma does indeed produce a developmental trajectory of sleep disturbances across the lifespan. In this proposal, I aim to 1) examine the effects of early life abuse on sleep physiology, sleep-related network activity, and biological rhythms across the lifespan; and 2) determine whether sleep dysfunction may be a contributing factor in the long-lasting neurobehavioral disturbances seen after early trauma. Aim 1 outlines a plan to characterize in detail early trauma-induced developmental disturbances in sleep architecture, sleep plasticity, diurnal activity levels, and sleep-related modulation of functional connectivity. In Aim 2, I will test whether interventions which are known to reverse emotional/behavioral function also repair sleep, and whether treatments directly targeting sleep can also induce repair of psychopathology. The proposed work involves behavioral, electrophysiological, pharmacological, and optogenetic techniques, and will test specific mechanisms and treatments of both the immediate and long-lasting consequences of early life trauma. The results of these investigations will contribute valuable insights into our understanding of the mechanisms of sleep?s role in memory and psychopathology throughout development, and sleep?s potential as a novel therapeutic target after childhood trauma. Relevance: Victims of childhood trauma face an increased risk of later life psychiatric illness, as well as a higher incidence of sleep problems. The goal of this work is to identify specific sleep impairments following early life trauma, and to explore sleep as a potential target for therapeutic intervention.