Findings from the present study suggest that individuals exposed to sexual assaultive trauma before 10 years have atypical developmental trajectories of frontal theta oscillations during response inhibition; the decrease in frontal theta power throughout adolescent and young adult development occurs at a slightly slower rate. This perhaps suggests that children exposed to early sexual assault might have atypical frontal cortical development that might be characterized by altered rates of synaptic pruning and gray matter production, which in turn could affect the development of top-down control over neural processing throughout adolescence and young adulthood. Research conducted in rodent models found that the enduring effects of early isolation and maternal separation on brain development could be a consequence of an arrested phase of synaptic overproduction.80 This is in agreement with previous studies in humans, which found maturational delay in cortical development associated with severe early life stress.39–41,46,48,50,52,75,86–90
