Developmental complex trauma induces the dysfunction of the amygdala-mPFC circuit in the serotonergic and dopaminergic systems.

Developmental complex trauma is strongly associated with various psychiatric disorders in adulthood. Multiple lines of evidence have demonstrated that the amygdala-mPFC circuit regulates emotion and plays an important role in stress reactions. However, most studies on developmental trauma have mainly focused on neurological aspects in biological, behavioral, and structural changes with regard to a single stressor. In the present study, after applying complex stressors to the developmental phase, we would like to elucidate the functional changes in amygdala-mPFC circuit in the dopaminergic and serotonergic systems in the adult brain. Here, maternal separation and restraint stress were used to generate the trauma. The results showed that the body weights and corticosterone levels of animals exposed to developmental trauma decreased when compared to controls. In the neuroendocrine aspect, trauma leads to changes in proinflammatory cytokines, resulting in a decrease in IL-β and an increase in TNF-α. In the neuroPET studies, the developmental trauma group displayed a reduction in serotonergic and dopaminergic PET uptake in the amygdala and mPFC. Collectively, our results indicate that developmental trauma weakens the serotonergic and dopaminergic systems in the amygdala-mPFC circuit.