Early life stress is one of the strongest predictors of developing emotional, cognitive, and behavioral difficulties (37). However, the mechanisms by which early adversity is associated with such difficulties are poorly understood. This study extends recent findings that extreme forms of childhood emotional neglect are associated with increased amygdala volume (7) and threat-related reactivity (4, 6). Here we show that self-reported history of emotional neglect in children from a community sample is similarly associated with heightened amygdala reactivity, providing initial evidence that milder forms of neglect are also associated with biases in neural function related to an increased risk for psychopathology.
