Opposing effects of childhood abuse and neglect on neural performance monitoring
- 1Centre for Research on Self and Identity, School of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom
- 2School of Psychology, Bond University, Robina, Australia
Abstract
The dimensional model of adversity proposes that threat (abuse) and deprivation (neglect) exert distinct effects on neurocognitive development. We tested whether these dimensions show opposing associations with neural indices of performance monitoring in a sample of 782 young adults from the CoScience EEG-Personality Project. Participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire alongside an Eriksen flanker task while electroencephalography was recorded. Performance monitoring was indexed by the error-related negativity and frontal midline theta activity. Consistent with preregistered hypotheses, abuse and neglect showed opposing associations with both neural measures. Higher abuse was associated with enhanced error-related negativity but not theta power, whereas higher neglect was associated with attenuated error-related negativity and reduced theta power. Exploratory analyses indicated that these associations were moderated by sex, with stronger effects observed in males. These findings are consistent with the distinction between threat- and deprivation-related adversity and suggest that different forms of childhood adversity may be linked to variation in neurocognitive processes underlying cognitive control. However, the cross-sectional and retrospective nature of the measures limits causal inference and may introduce reporting biases.
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BibTeX
@article{robins2026opposing,
title = {{Opposing effects of childhood abuse and neglect on neural performance monitoring}},
author = {Esther M. Robins and Zhiwei Zhou and Douglas J. Angus and Dennis Golm and Nicholas J. Kelley},
journal = {Imaging Neuroscience},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.1162/imag.a.1439},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1162/imag.a.1439},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Opposing effects of childhood abuse and neglect on neural performance monitoring
AU - Esther M. Robins
AU - Zhiwei Zhou
AU - Douglas J. Angus
AU - Dennis Golm
AU - Nicholas J. Kelley
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/04
JO - Imaging Neuroscience
DO - 10.1162/imag.a.1439
UR - https://doi.org/10.1162/imag.a.1439
AB - The dimensional model of adversity proposes that threat (abuse) and deprivation (neglect) exert distinct effects on neurocognitive development. We tested whether these dimensions show opposing associations with neural indices of performance monitoring in a sample of 782 young adults from the CoScience EEG-Personality Project. Participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire alongside an Eriksen flanker task while electroencephalography was recorded. Performance monitoring was indexed by the error-related negativity and frontal midline theta activity. Consistent with preregistered hypotheses, abuse and neglect showed opposing associations with both neural measures. Higher abuse was associated with enhanced error-related negativity but not theta power, whereas higher neglect was associated with attenuated error-related negativity and reduced theta power. Exploratory analyses indicated that these associations were moderated by sex, with stronger effects observed in males. These findings are consistent with the distinction between threat- and deprivation-related adversity and suggest that different forms of childhood adversity may be linked to variation in neurocognitive processes underlying cognitive control. However, the cross-sectional and retrospective nature of the measures limits causal inference and may introduce reporting biases.
SN - 2837-6056
ER -