Neural Mechanisms Promoting Biased Social Memories in Intergenerational Childhood Abuse

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Childhood maltreatment impacts over a third of children worldwide and contributes to a quarter of all psychiatric disorders. Because parents with, compared to without exposure to childhood maltreatment are 2-3 times more likely to abuse their own children, many families are trapped in intergenerational cycles of abuse. Although intergenerational abuse is well-established, the cognitive mechanisms that contribute to its persistence are poorly mapped. We propose that childhood abuse may bias individuals towards prioritizing the encoding and recall of negative, rather than positive, social feedback. Despite robust evidence that childhood abuse is associated with negative cognitive biases as well as alterations in episodic memory and corresponding hippocampal dysfunction, the role that memory bias plays in intergenerational abuse remains untested. Because memory is reconstructive, it is fundamentally malleable, thus neurocognitive mechanisms of memory bias may serve as an ideal intervention target. One factor contributing to a dearth of research testing effects of memory bias on abuse transmission is a lack of ecologically-valid paradigms that link brain response to encoding social feedback with its subsequent recall. We addressed this challenge with the Recall After Feedback Task (RAFT). Preliminary work with the RAFT demonstrates that more severe childhood abuse is associated with greater recall for negative social feedback and enhanced anterior hippocampal engagement when encoding negative vs. positive social feedback. I propose to extend this work in parents with a range of childhood abuse experiences and test the extent to which neurocognitive mechanisms implicated in social memory bias relate to current harsh parenting style. This inquiry is essential given that abuse is an inherently social process, yet most studies of intergenerational transmission fail to probe neurocognitive mechanisms that support social processing. I aim to characterize associations between childhood abuse and 1) memory bias for social feedback; 2) the relationship between hippocampal activation when encoding social feedback and memory bias; and 3) the degree to which memory bias and brain activation promote harsh parenting. The proposed study will advance the field and provide novel intervention targets by characterizing the contribution of social memory bias and its neural basis to the link between childhood abuse and harsh parenting. The proposed training plan, which consists of workshops, experiential learning, and mentorship, will develop my expertise in ecologically-valid fMRI study design and analysis, neural mechanisms of memory, and neuropsychosocial outcomes following maltreatment. As a result, I will gain expertise and preliminary data needed for future grants that inform interventions to curtail intergenerational abuse and establish the foundation for becoming an independent developmental social neuroscientist. Temple University’s Department of Psychology and Neuroscience has a successful track record of conducting impactful NICHD-funded work and is the ideal setting for the proposed research and training.