Biological embedding of childhood maltreatment in adult depression

Abstract

Childhood maltreatment (CM) has been shown to increase the risk for adult psychopathology and attributes to 23% of depression cases. Depression is a multidimensional syndrome leading to increased morbidity and mortality with significant economic and social disease burden. The early experience-dependent shaping of the neuroendocrine-immune systems in response to CM termed as biological embedding is reviewed here with relevance to adult depression. Our findings suggest that exposure to CM affects major biological pathways implicated in the etiology of depression, such as HPA function, inflammation, neurotransmitter, and neurotrophic systems. More specifically, CM affects key stress-responsive ..