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Associations Between Early Life Adversity, Brain Aging Trajectories, and Impulsivity in Youth

Poster Session D - Monday, March 9, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Sriparna Sen¹, Jamie Hanson¹; ¹University of Pittsburgh

Early life adversities (ELA), encompassing instances of abuse and neglect, profoundly affect neurodevelopmental systems that support cognitive health and emotion regulation. Recent evidence suggests that ELA may alter “brain age,” a machine learning derived biomarker that indicates deviations from expected neural maturation. Several studies report brain age may predict risk for cognitive health outcomes like dementia. However, little is known about trajectories of brain aging and how these trajectories influence behaviors contributing to such risks. This project addresses this gap by investigating how ELA relates to brain age trajectories and whether these patterns are associated with behavioral correlates, specifically impulsivity. Youth aged 14-22 were sampled across four waves of the IMAGEN study. Leveraging a time-series clustering algorithm sensitive to non-linear changes, seven unique brain aging trajectories were identified. Associations between ELA, characterized through a composite of self-reported experiences, and brain age trajectories were examined to elucidate if differential levels of ELA mapped to specific patterns of neurodevelopment. ELA was significantly associated with three trajectories; two demonstrated unique patterns of increase in brain age over time while one demonstrated a decrease. This study then tested how brain age trajectory and ELA interacted to influence impulsivity. Results indicate that higher ELA and a trajectory marked by decreasing brain age over time significantly associated with impulsivity. These findings highlight that ELA may not uniformly accelerate brain aging, but rather contribute to heterogeneous trajectories that confer facets of risk and resilience.

Topic Area: EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging