Neurobiological Markers of Resilience to Depression and Anxiety Following Childhood Maltreatment: The Role of Neural Circuits Supporting the Cognitive Control of Emotion

Childhood adversity is strongly linked to negative mental health outcomes, including depression and anxiety. Leveraging cognitive neuroscience to identify mechanisms that contribute to resilience in children with a history of maltreatment may provide viable intervention targets for the treatment or prevention of psychopathology. Neural circuits underlying the cognitive control of emotion may promote resilience, wherein a child’s ability to recruit the frontoparietal control network to modulate amygdala reactivity to negative emotional cues—such as during cognitive reappraisal— buffers risk for internalizing symptoms following exposure to adversity.