Childhood emotional neglect is a subtype of childhood trauma(including physical/sexual/emotional abuse and physical/emotional neglect)that refers to a failure to meet the basic emotional needs of a child,insensitivity to the child’s distress,and ignoring the child’s social and emotional development.Childhood emotional neglect is highly prevalent and may occur independently of other subtypes.More importantly,many studies have found that childhood emotional neglect experience can have long-term effects on psychological impairment and social functioning,even in young people.Emotional face processing is strongly associated with developing psychiatric disorders and social functioning.However,the association between childhood emotional neglect experiences,emotional face processing,and white matter structure remains unknown.After online questionnaires,interviews,and diagnosis by professional doctors,20 participants who reported childhood emotional neglect experiences(emotional neglect group)and 20 participants who did not report childhood emotional neglect experiences(control group)were obtained for this study,and none of the participants had any psychiatric disorders.Sub-study 1 used a 2(group:emotional neglect group,control group)× 4(emotional faces: angry,happy,neutral,surprised)mixed design to investigate the differences in accuracy and response time between the two groups when identifying the valence of emotional faces.Sub-study 2 applied two complementary diffusion tensor imaging(DTI)methods,Tract-Based Spatial Statistics(TBSS)and Automating Fiber-Tract Quantification(AFQ),to examine differences in white matter structure between the emotional neglect group and the control group.The results of sub-study 1 showed that the emotional neglect group was slower to identify the valence of all emotional faces compared to the control group,but there was no significant difference in accuracy between the two groups.In sub-study 2,AFQ analysis found lower anisotropy coefficients(FA)at nodes 1-35 of the right thalamic radiation in the emotion neglect group compared to the control group.TBSS analysis did not reveal significant group differences.Furthermore,brain-behavior correlation analyses showed that the lower the right thalamic radiation’s anisotropy coefficient(FA)at nodes 1-35,the lower the mean response time for identifying emotional faces in the emotional neglect group.We speculate that the childhood emotional neglect experience may lead to right thalamic radiation changes,which in turn affect emotion-related cognition and behavior,including emotion regulation and emotional face processing.The current study showed that undergraduate students with childhood emotional neglect experiences showed slower emotional face processing and reduced anisotropy coefficients for right thalamic radiation compared to control undergraduate students.The results suggest that even those non-clinical undergraduates without any psychiatric disorder were affected by the childhood emotional neglect experience over time.Thus,we not only need to protect children from emotional neglect but also need to pay special attention to the mental health of people who have already experienced emotional neglect,especially college students who have just reached adulthood.The current study further enriches how childhood traumatic experiences influence emotional face processing abilities and brain structure development.It also provides a perspective for future research on prevention and intervention related to psychological and behavioral problems secondary to childhood emotional neglect. |