Neglect during early childhood has long-term neural implications that can last throughout the duration of adolescence.
This was recently observed in a group of foster children who were deprived of care and emotional connection from a very early age. MRI scans of these children who had been institutionalized revealed that they had lower brain volumes in comparison to their peers who had been placed into a high-quality foster care intervention program.
Margaret Sheridan, a clinical psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and lead author of the new study, explained that what children are deprived of at an early age is just as important as what they a provided with in terms of fostering healthy brain development.
“Here we show that that the opportunities that a child has in early life to learn and grow will impact not just their behavior but their actual brain development and brain structure for years to come,” Sheridan said in a statement.
The new research is centered on orphaned children in Romania—136 (aged 6 to 30 months) from foster institutions in Bucharest and 72 age-matched children who were born at the same hospitals but had been randomly selected for a grant-funded foster care intervention program that received strong support from social services and foster families.
The children were followed throughout adolescence and underwent MRI scans at the ages of 9 and 16—times of pivotal social development. These exams revealed several differences in the brain structures between the two groups.
The group of children who were part of the high-quality foster care program were found to have brain volumes approximately 2.5 to 5.5% higher than the institutionalized group. Cortical thickness was found to differ between the two groups as well, with the institutionalized group exhibiting greater decreases in cortical thickness from 9 to 16 years in the lateral and medial PFC and the precuneus.
These findings and others were most pronounced in children who had been randomized to high-quality foster care before 24 months of age—a finding that Sheridan and colleagues suggested further validate the notion that children need invested caregivers from a very early age and caregivers need dedicated support systems.
“In recent times conversation has focused on how to better support caregivers through early pre-k programs, better family social services, and health care,” Sheridan said in an interview with UNC Chapel Hill. “If these kinds of supports provide resources to families so that they can focus on parenting, those programs will support healthy brain development.”
The detailed study can be viewed in Science Advances.
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She joined Innovate Healthcare in 2021 and has since put her unique expertise to use in her editorial role with Health Imaging.