Childhood maltreatment is associated with lower exploration and disrupted prefrontal activity and connectivity during reward learning in volatile environments.

Background: Atypical reward processing is implicated in a range of psychiatric disorders associated with childhood maltreatment and may represent a latent vulnerability mechanism. In this longitudinal study, we investigated the impact of maltreatment on behavioural and neural indices of reward learning in volatile environments and examined associations with future psychopathology assessed 18 months later.

Methods: Thirty-seven children and adolescents with documented histories of maltreatment (MT group) and a carefully matched group of 32 non-maltreated individuals (NMT group) aged 10-16 were presented with a probabilistic reinforcement learning task featuring a phase of stable and a phase of volatile reward contingencies.

Heightened response to positive facial cues as a potential marker of resilience following childhood adversity.

Childhood maltreatment profoundly influences social and emotional development, increasing psychiatric risk. Alterations in the implicit processing of threat-related cues following early abuse and neglect represent a marker of mental health vulnerability. Less is known about how early adversity influences the perception of positive social cues, despite their central role in establishing and maintaining social interactions and their association with better mental health outcomes.

Reduced prosocial motivation and effort in adolescents with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits.

Background: Prosocial behaviours - acts that benefit others - are of crucial importance for many species including humans. However, adolescents with conduct problems (CP), unlike their typically developing (TD) peers, demonstrate markedly reduced engagement in prosocial behaviours. This pattern is particularly pronounced in adolescents with CP and high levels of callous-unemotional traits (CP/HCU) who are at increased risk of developing psychopathy in adulthood.

EXAMINING MECHANISMS OF CHILDHOOD COGNITIVE CONTROL.

Childhood cognitive control is an important predictor for positive development, yet interventions seeking to improve it have provided mixed results. This is partly due to lack of clarity surrounding mechanisms of cognitive control, notably the role of inhibition and context monitoring. Here we use a randomized controlled trial to causally test the contributions of inhibition and context monitoring to cognitive control in childhood.

Parenting boys with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits: parent and child perspectives.

Parenting children with conduct problems (CP) is challenging, yet very little research has examined parenting using both quantitative and qualitative methods, from the perspective of the child and their parent/caregiver, and separately for those with high vs. low levels of callous-unemotional traits (HCU vs. LCU).

Trust and childhood maltreatment: evidence of bias in appraisal of unfamiliar faces.

Background: Child maltreatment is associated with poorer social functioning and increased risk of mental health problems in adolescence and adulthood, but the processes underlying these associations remain unclear. Although crucial for establishing and maintaining relationships, trust judgements have not been experimentally investigated in children who have experienced abuse and neglect.

Methods: A community-based sample of 75 children aged 8-16 years with maltreatment documented on the basis of social services records, and a group of 70 peers matched on age, gender, cognitive ability, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity took part in the study.