In females, CSAT was linked to decreased growth of EEGc, which was subsequently linked to greater PTSD and AUD symptoms in young adulthood. This suggests that the changes associated with early childhood sexual trauma in women are associated with differences in neural connectivity that may relate to poorer psychiatric functioning in young adulthood. This finding is consistent with literature suggesting childhood trauma, particularly sexual trauma, can leave lasting signatures on neurodevelopment (Edwards, 2018). Although the ability to test causal associations is limited in this observational study, the associations do point to a possibility that neural connectivity may be a biomarker linking childhood trauma to later mental health outcomes. Interestingly, the nature of these associations differs between men and women. In males, only baseline values of RFC EEGc were significantly associated with PTSD and AUD symptoms in young adulthood. Following trauma exposure, women are more likely to develop PTSD and comorbid PTSD and AUD than men (Kessler et al., 1997; Peltier et al., 2022), though the sex-differences may also be in part due to the higher prevalence of childhood physical compared to sexual assaultive trauma in males (Erol & Karpyak, 2015; Helpman et al., 2017).
