Background. Child maltreatment (CM) is defined as any act of commission or omission by a caregiver that results in harm, potential for harm, or threat of harm to a child. The impact of CM is intense and harmful, with neurobiological and neuroendocrine consequences, indeed CM affects child development in behavioral, emotional, social, physical, and cognitive areas. CM has shown to have common and powerful associations with the occurrence of various types of psychiatric disorders, and it comes to be a strong predictor of mental illness. Understanding how CM and, specifically the different types of CM, affect the development of psychopathologies in humans is still an open question. Furthermore, the neurobiological mechanisms that are elicited/activated by exposure to different types of CM and their impact on neurodevelopmental trajectories are not fully elucidated.
Objective. Here, we aim to investigate, thanks to a multidimensional approach, the impact of different types of CM on psycho-neuro-biological factors in adolescence.
Methodology. Adolescents who experienced different types of CM or normal environment will be exposed to a comprehensive screening aimed to evaluate psychological and behavioral parameters, brain functioning, and blood gene expression. To perform this evaluation a clinical and psychometric interview, a high-density EEG scanning (through the Geodesic Sensor Net system), and an RNA-Seq in blood cells will be performed. A picture of the complex effects of childhood abuse and neglect will be obtained by submitting all measured parameters to multivariate and exploratory analyses.
Expected Results. Through this examination, we intend to identify biological vulnerability factors responsible for deviating the normal developmental trajectories and causing psychopathological outcomes after a traumatic childhood
