Researchers identify potential neural signature of resilience

Australian and US scientists have shown an association between specific brain morphological networks, mental wellbeing and resilience in healthy adults with varying levels of childhood stress or trauma, with their results published in the journal Translational Psychiatry.

Early life stress (ELS) is a well-known risk factor for mental health problems in adulthood — but while changes in numerous brain structures have been reported to be associated with traumatic life experiences, not everyone who experiences trauma will develop psychopathology and may instead develop mental resilience. Scientists from Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA), UNSW Sydney and Stanford University set out to investigate why this is the case by examining the relationship between brain structural networks, wellbeing and resilience, comparing those who experienced early life stress to those without.

The researchers utilised brain anatomical scans from the landmark TWIN-E study and 242 healthy Australian adults, measured wellbeing and resilience with the COMPAS-W scale (previously developed by the Gatt Resilience Lab at NeuRA/UNSW) and utilised a novel method of examining the whole brain to see how structural networks might differ between resilient and non-resilient participants. They also used structural equation modelling to determine whether using emotional regulation strategies changed the relationship between the brain and the level of one’s resilience.

The team’s findings demonstrated that ELS exposure has an effect on the brain–wellbeing relationship in adults, and that people who were also identified as resilient (those with high wellbeing and previous ELS exposure) displayed stronger connections between prefrontal and parietal regions of the brain. The study also showed that cognitive reappraisal — an emotional regulation strategy that involves reframing how you think about different emotional or stressful situations — has a significant effect on the links between the brain and mental wellbeing.

“Resilience is a dynamic process that includes reducing the impact of disturbances, in this case a traumatic or stressful event in early life, on wellbeing and a swift recovery after exposure,” said Dr Haeme Park, Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at NeuRA.

“What our research found was that being exposed to trauma in early life can have a marked effect on both brain structure and wellbeing into adulthood, but this does not always lead to an ongoing negative mental health outcome. Learning to adopt adaptive emotion regulation strategies was demonstrated to help boost resilience, which is a really encouraging finding.

“It’s also important to realise that you can be ‘languishing’ and therefore have a low level of wellbeing, and this can be observed in brain differences compared to those with high wellbeing — both in people who have and have not experienced significant stress or trauma in their early life.”

The researchers’ next goal is to use longitudinal data to explore how our levels of wellbeing and distress change over time, how our brain changes in response to these outcomes and whether factors that predict resilience can be identified.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/simona

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