Neural signatures of parental empathic responses to imagined suffering of their adolescent child.

Empathy is deemed indispensable for sensitive caregiving. Neuroimaging studies have identified canonical empathy networks consisting of regions supporting cognitive and affective aspects of empathy. However, not much is known about how these regions support empathy towards one's own offspring and how this neural activity relates to parental caregiving.

Childhood Trauma in Adult Depressive and Anxiety Disorders: An Integrated Review on Psychological and Biological Mechanisms in the NESDA Cohort.

Background: Childhood trauma (CT) has adverse consequences on mental health across the lifespan. The understanding of how CT increases vulnerability for psychiatric disorders is growing. However, lack of an integrative approach to psychological and biological mechanisms of CT hampers further advancement.

The effect of parental emotional abuse on the severity and treatment of PTSD symptoms in children and adolescents.

Background: Maltreatment by a primary caregiver is an important risk factor for the development of PTSD symptoms. Whereas meta-analyses indicate that parental emotional abuse is one of the most common forms of maltreatment, the impact of emotional abuse on PTSD symptoms and treatment effectiveness is still unclear, especially in children.

Objective: We aimed to investigate the impact of parental emotional abuse on PTSD symptom severity and effectiveness of trauma treatment in children and adolescents.

Childhood trauma and dysregulation of multiple biological stress systems in adulthood: Results from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA).

Background: Childhood trauma (CT) is a risk factor for depressive and anxiety disorders. Although dysregulated biological stress systems may underlie the enduring effect of CT, the relation between CT and separate and cumulative activity of the major stress systems, namely, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis, the immune-inflammatory system, and the autonomic nervous system (ANS), remains inconclusive.

Methods: In the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA, n = 2778), we determined whether self-reported CT (as assessed by the Childhood Trauma Interview) was associated with separate and cumulative markers of the HPA-axis (cortisol awakening response, evening cortisol, dexamethasone suppression test cortisol), the immune-inflammatory system (C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-α), and the ANS (heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, pre-ejection period) in adulthood.