Why is it important to understand childhood adversity? 👧👦
Childhood adversity: a profound determinant of health (The Lancet Public health, 2021, 6(11): e780.)
Childhood adversity is one big public health issue and may lead to adulthood illness, not only including mental health probelms but also many physical problems. A safe and healthy childhood are fundamental to physical, mental, and social development. I am deeply interested in exploring the trans-diagnostic mechanisms of childhood adversity. My work seeks to understand how experiences of stress, trauma, neighborhood risk and social disadvantages in childhood alter developmental processes in ways that increase risk for psychopathology. Understanding these mechanisms is critical for the development of interventions to prevent the onset of psychopathology in children who experience adversity.
I am trying to understand childhood adversity and psychopathology from different levels:
- Theory/Goal Level: life history theory; the stress acceleration hypothesis
- Algorithm Level: accelerated aging, different attachment styles, dsyregulated emotion regulation, abnormal reward/threat processing, abnormal metabolism
- Implementation Level: higher inflammation, abnormal neurocognition, more risk-taking behaviours
📢 Call for collaborator: if you are interested in childhood adversity and psychopathology, and if you have an expertise on reinforcement learning and decision making, I have some interesting research ideas in my mind and would like to share with you.
1. The Impact of Childhood Adversity and Trauma on Brain and Mental Health
My first research line aims to answer what aspects or features of brain structure, function, and behavior are shaped by early-life stress and adversity, and what magnitude of these effects confers vulnerability or resilience to later mental health problems. Using multimodal neuroimaging, genetics, longitudinal data, machine learning, network modeling, and behavioral assessments, I identify the specific brain and psychological signatures through which childhood experiences exert lasting effects on mental health. This work ultimately informs preventive and early intervention strategies that promote healthy development in at-risk populations.
- Zhou, L., Cai, T., Ip, K. (2025) The association between neighborhood opportunity, cognitive function, and brain structure in youth: findings from ABCD study. Biological Psychitry: Global Open Science
- Zhou, L., Sommer, I. E., Yang, P., Sikirin, L., van Os, J., Bentall, R. P., … & Begemann, M. J. (2025) What Do Four Decades of Research Tell Us About the Association between Childhood Adversity and Psychosis: An Updated and Extended Multi-Level Meta-Analysis. American Journal of Psychiatry.
- Zhou, H. Y., Zhou, L., Zheng, T. X., Ma, L. P., Fan, M. X., Liu, L., … & Yan, C. (2025). Unraveling the link between childhood maltreatment and depression: Insights from the role of ventral striatum and middle cingulate cortex in hedonic experience and emotion regulation. Development and psychopathology, 1-11.
- Flinn A., Hefferman-Clarke R., Parker S., Kate A., Zhou, L., Begemann A., Bentall R., & Varese F. (2025). Cumulative exposure to childhood adversity and risk of adult psychosis: A dose-response meta-analysis. Psychological Medicine
- Zhou, L., Schnack H., van Dellen, E., P. Boks., M., Bakker, R., Cahn, W., Sommer, I. E., Begemann M. J. The transdiagnostic association between childhood trauma and accelerated brain aging in two independent datasets (under revision in Schizophrenia Bulletin)
- Zhou, L., Gangadin, S., De Beer, F., Begemann, M. J., Bakker, R., Sommer, I. E. Person-centered modeling of childhood adversity and its impact on long-term outcomes in first-episode psychosis: A four-year follow-up study (under review in Psychological Medicine)
- Zhou, L., Begemann, M., Bakker, R., Sommer, I.E. Mapping the brain structure deviations associated with childhood trauma in schizophrenia and bipolar disorders using normative modeling (In Preparation)
2. Gene and Environment Interplay on Mental Health
My second research line aims to answer how genetic predispositions interact with environmental exposures to influence mental health trajectories. By integrating genomic, environmental, and psychosocial data, I investigate how polygenic profiles moderate the impact of stress, trauma, and social context on mental health outcomes.
- Zhou, L., Ku, B., Cai, T., Ip, K. Can neighborhood opportunity buffer the impact of family adversity and genetic risk on psychotic-like experiences in youth? (In Preparation)
- Zhou, L., Jankovic, M., Guloksuz, S., Allot, K., Begemann, M., Bakker, R., Sommer, I. E. Inter-relationships among childhood adversity, psychopathology, and polygenic scores in first-episode psychosis (In Preparation)
- Gene-environment interactions for parkinson’s disease in Lifelines cohort (In Preparation)
3. Computational Mechanisms of Childhood Adversity on Mental Health
My third research line aims to answer why and how childhood adversity alters underlying computational processes in learning, decision-making, and emotion regulation that drive mental health outcomes. Using reinforcement learning, Bayesian modeling, and network analyses, I aim to identify latent computational mechanisms that link early experiences to psychopathology and adaptive functioning. I am using behavioural experiments data from ZIB study.
4. Traumatic Memory and Intensive Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA)
My fourth research line aims to answer when and under what conditions traumatic memories and emotional states fluctuate in daily life. Using intensive Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) and mobile technologies, I capture fine-grained affective dynamics to understand how memory reactivation, mood, and contextual factors (i.e., social activity, physical activity, diet, pain, sleep, screen use, stress, negative life events, working status, and weather), interact to shape moment-to-moment mental health. I also aim to develop and evaluate intervention strategies, such as mindfulness-based and diary-based approaches, to modulate these dynamics and promote adaptive emotional regulation in daily life. Currently, I am still collecting data.