Life Events research project

Childhood maltreatment (CM) is a risk factor for many mental and physical health problems. Although the contribution of CM to psychological (e.g. social cognition) and biological (e.g. neural, biomolecular) outcomes has been extensively studied, e.g. in schizophrenia and autism, its relevance in bipolar disorder (BD) and the role of different CM subtypes (i.e. emotional, physical, sexual) remains unclear. Our Life Events project will investigate how a history of emotional CM as well as CM multiplicity and timing are associated with multidimensional aspects of social cognition (i.e. emotion recognition, affective and cognitive empathy) as these effects may be opposite in control participants (CP) with no known psychiatric illness and in individuals diagnosed with BD. The role of different protective factors of positive childhood experiences may be relevant for better health outcomes in this context. Therefore, we will additionally investigate the interaction between positive and negative childhood experiences.

This study is aimed at understanding in which way negative childhood experiences relate to bipolar disorder, and the role of protective factors. Although up to 36% of people in the general population have been reported to have mild to severe CM, its prevalence is higher in people with bipolar disorder. A history of CM is linked with early onset, psychotic features, more depressive and manic recurrences, increased risk of suicide and non-suicidal self-harm, lower likelihood of treatment response, and greater severity of episodes are seen compared to individuals diagnosed with BD without a history of CM.