Cross-Tissue Comparison of Epigenetic Aging Clocks in Humans.

Epigenetic clocks are a common group of tools used to measure biological aging - the progressive deterioration of cells, tissues and organs. Epigenetic clocks have been trained almost exclusively using blood-based tissues but there is growing interest in estimating epigenetic age using less-invasive oral-based tissues (i.e.

Child Behavior Problems and Maltreatment Exposure.

Objectives: Establish the longitudinal cross-lagged associations between maltreatment exposure and child behavior problems to promote screening and the type and timing of interventions needed.

Methods: The Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect, a multiwave prospective cohort study of maltreatment exposure, enrolled children and caregivers (N = 1354) at approximately age 4 and followed them throughout childhood and adolescence. Families completed 7 waves of data collection with each wave occurring 2 years apart.

The Impact of Time Since Menarche for Depressive and Anxiety Symptom Severity in Adolescence and Young Adulthood.

Purpose: The study mapped depressive and anxiety symptom trajectories throughout adolescence and early adulthood, arrayed by time since menarche, a novel indicator of pubertal change and examined the effect of age of menarche and pubertal timing, more frequently used variables, on depressive and anxiety symptom severity trajectories.

Methods: Secondary analysis of a cross-sequential prospective longitudinal investigation included a community sample of 262 US, adolescent females. Participants were enrolled in age cohorts of 11, 13, 15, and 17 years.

Contamination bias in the estimation of child maltreatment causal effects on adolescent internalizing and externalizing behavior problems.

Background: When unaddressed, contamination in child maltreatment research, in which some proportion of children recruited for a nonmaltreated comparison group are exposed to maltreatment, downwardly biases the significance and magnitude of effect size estimates. This study extends previous contamination research by investigating how a dual-measurement strategy of detecting and controlling contamination impacts causal effect size estimates of child behavior problems.

Methods: This study included 634 children from the LONGSCAN study with 63 cases of confirmed child maltreatment after age 8 and 571 cases without confirmed child maltreatment.

Cross-tissue comparison of telomere length and quality metrics of DNA among individuals aged 8 to 70 years.

Telomere length (TL) is an important biomarker of cellular aging, yet its links with health outcomes may be complicated by use of different tissues. We evaluated within- and between-individual variability in TL and quality metrics of DNA across five tissues using a cross-sectional dataset ranging from 8 to 70 years (N = 197). DNA was extracted from all tissue cells using the Gentra Puregene DNA Extraction Kit.

Contamination in Observational Research on Child Maltreatment: A Conceptual and Empirical Review With Implications for Future Research.

Contamination is a methodological phenomenon occurring in child maltreatment research when individuals in an established comparison condition have, in reality, been exposed to maltreatment during childhood. The current paper: (1) provides a conceptual and methodological introduction to contamination in child maltreatment research, (2) reviews the empirical literature demonstrating that the presence of contamination biases causal estimates in both prospective and retrospective cohort studies of child maltreatment effects, (3) outlines a dual measurement strategy for how child maltreatment researchers can address contamination, and (4) describes modern statistical methods for generating causal estimates in child maltreatment research after contamination is controlled. Our goal is to introduce the issue of contamination to researchers examining the effects of child maltreatment in an effort to improve the precision and replication of causal estimates that ultimately inform scientific and clinical decision-making as well as public policy.

Epigenetic age acceleration as a biomarker for impaired cognitive abilities in adulthood following early life adversity and psychiatric disorders.

Background: Early life adversity and psychiatric disorders are associated with earlier declines in neurocognitive abilities during adulthood. These declines may be preceded by changes in biological aging, specifically epigenetic age acceleration, providing an opportunity to uncover genome-wide biomarkers that identify individuals most likely to benefit from early screening and prevention.

Methods: Five unique epigenetic age acceleration clocks derived from peripheral blood were examined in relation to latent variables of general and speeded cognitive abilities across two independent cohorts: 1) the Female Growth and Development Study (FGDS;  = 86), a 30-year prospective cohort study of substantiated child sexual abuse and non-abused controls, and 2) the Biological Classification of Mental Disorders study (BeCOME;  = 313), an adult community cohort established based on psychiatric disorders.

The association of epigenetic age acceleration and depressive and anxiety symptom severity among children recently exposed to substantiated maltreatment.

Child maltreatment is a major risk factor for both depressive and anxiety disorders. However, many children exposed to maltreatment never meet diagnostic threshold for either disorder while experiencing only transitory symptoms post-exposure. Recent research suggests DNA methylation adds predictive value in explaining variation in the onset and course of multiple psychiatric disorders following exposure to child maltreatment.

Investigating the effects of maltreatment and acute stress on the concordance of blood and DNA methylation methods of estimating immune cell proportions.

Background: Immune cell proportions can be used to detect pathophysiological states and are also critical covariates in genomic analyses. The complete blood count (CBC) is the most common method of immune cell proportion estimation, but immune cell proportions can also be estimated using whole-genome DNA methylation (DNAm). Although the concordance of CBC and DNAm estimations has been validated in various adult and clinical populations, less is known about the concordance of existing estimators among stress-exposed individuals.

Childhood maltreatment and DNA methylation: A systematic review.

Child maltreatment (CM) encompasses sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, and exposure to domestic and family violence. Epigenetic research investigating CM has focused on differential DNA methylation (DNAm) in genes associated with the stress response, but there has been limited evaluation of the specific effects of subtypes of CM. This systematic review of literature investigating DNAm associated with CM in non-clinical populations aimed to summarise the approaches currently used in research, how the type of maltreatment and age of exposure were encoded via methylation, and which genes have consistently been associated with CM.

Child maltreatment, parent-child relationship quality, and parental monitoring in relation to adolescent behavior problems: Disaggregating between and within person effects.

Background: Parent-child relationship quality (PCRQ) and parental monitoring (PM) are associated with adolescent behavior problems following child maltreatment (CM). Whether these associations are best characterized as between (trait) or within-person (state) differences is unknown.

Objective: Disaggregate between and within-person effects for PCRQ and PM on adolescent behavior problems and test whether these effects vary as a function of prior CM.

Receptive Language Abilities for Females Exposed to Early Life Adversity: Modification by Epigenetic Age Acceleration at Midlife in a 30-Year Prospective Cohort Study.

Objectives: Deviations from normative trajectories of receptive language abilities following early life adversity (ELA) may indicate an elevated risk for advanced cognitive aging and related morbidities. Accelerated epigenetic aging at midlife may further identify those at greatest risk for advanced cognitive aging following ELA. We examined whether accelerations in epigenetic aging at midlife can identify those individuals who demonstrated the greatest change in receptive language abilities following ELA.

Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Change during Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Results from a Randomized Controlled Feasibility Trial.

Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) is a well-established treatment for pediatric posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) has been proposed as an adjunct to TF-CBT that may improve treatment effects through enhanced targeting of affect regulation, as indexed by specific changes in the respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). The current study reports results from a randomized controlled feasibility trial (N = 33; M = 11.

Obesity and accelerated epigenetic aging in a high-risk cohort of children.

New insights into mechanisms linking obesity to poor health outcomes suggest a role for cellular aging pathways, casting obesity as a disease of accelerated biological aging. Although obesity has been linked to accelerated epigenetic aging in middle-aged adults, the impact during childhood remains unclear. We tested the association between body mass index (BMI) and accelerated epigenetic aging in a cohort of high-risk children.

The Flexible Regulation of Emotional Expression Scale for Youth (FREE-Y): Adaptation and Validation Across a Varied Sample of Children and Adolescents.

Flexible self-regulation has been shown to be an adaptive ability. This study adapted and validated the adult (FREE) Scale for use with youth (FREE-Y) in community and maltreatment samples. The FREE-Y measures the ability to flexibly enhance and suppress emotion expression across an array of hypothetical social scenarios.

Comparing qPCR and DNA methylation-based measurements of telomere length in a high-risk pediatric cohort.

Various approaches exist to assess population differences in biological aging. Telomere length (TL) is one such measure, and is associated with disease, disability and early mortality. Yet, issues surrounding precision and reproducibility are a concern for TL measurement.

Cortisol trajectories measured prospectively across thirty years of female development following exposure to childhood sexual abuse: Moderation by epigenetic age acceleration at midlife.

Lasting changes in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis are a potential indication of the biological embedding of early life adversity, yet, prospective and repeatedly collected data are needed to confirm this relation. Likewise, integrating information from multiple biological systems, such as the HPA axis and the epigenome, has the potential to identify individuals with enhanced embedding of early life adversity. The current study reports results from the Female Growth and Development Study, a 30-year prospective cohort study of childhood sexual abuse (CSA).

Behavioral and pharmacological interventions for the prevention and treatment of psychiatric disorders with children exposed to maltreatment.

There is a well-established relation between exposure to child maltreatment and the onset and course of multiple, comorbid psychiatric disorders. Given the heterogeneous clinical presentations at the time services are initiated, interventions for children exposed to maltreatment need to be highly effective to curtail the lifelong burden and public health costs attributable to psychiatric disorders. The current review describes the most effective, well-researched, and widely-used behavioral and pharmacological interventions for preventing and treating a range of psychiatric disorders common in children exposed to maltreatment.

An observational study of Internet behaviours for adolescent females following sexual abuse.

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is associated with revictimization and sexual risk-taking behaviours. The Internet has increased the opportunities for teens to access sexually explicit imagery and has provided new avenues for victimization and exploitation. Online URL activity and offline psychosocial factors were assessed for 460 females aged 12-16 (CSA = 156; comparisons = 304) with sexual behaviours and Internet-initiated victimization assessed 2 years later.

Assembling a cohort for in-depth, longitudinal assessments of the biological embedding of child maltreatment: Methods, complexities, and lessons learned.

As championed by the work of Ed Zigler, investing in nurturing environments for all children is a chief tenet of primary prevention that will have far-reaching benefits to the health and welfare of all members of society. Children who endure child maltreatment (CM) are among society's most vulnerable. Prospective longitudinal research aimed at a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms linking CM to subsequent adverse health consequences is needed to improve outcomes and to strengthen causal inference.

Child Maltreatment and Substance Use in Emerging Adulthood: Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors at the Transition to Adolescence as Indirect Pathways.

One well-established outcome of child maltreatment is an increased likelihood of substance use in emerging adulthood. However, research identifying the indirect pathways that explain this relation is lacking, thereby limiting substance use prevention efforts for the child maltreatment population. The present study helped address this gap by accessing data from The Longitudinal Studies on Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN; = 1,136), a prospective cohort study of child maltreatment from birth through age eighteen.

Integrating Animal-Assisted Therapy Into TF-CBT for Abused Youth With PTSD: A Randomized Controlled Feasibility Trial.

This clinical trial examined animal-assisted therapy (AAT) as an adjunct to Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) for abused youth with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Youth between the ages of 6 and 17 ( = 11.79, = 3.