Figure 1.

Childhood adversity affects the shaping of personality, which eventually leads to development of personality disorder, alcohol use disorder, substance use disorder, intermittent explosive disorder (IED), and aggressive behaviors such as domestic abuse or expressive murders in adulthood. Factors such as genetics and environment also interact with alcohol intake and causing neuroplasticity in brain regions associated with emotional and cognitive regulation. Childhood stress such as deprivation alters the function and reduces the volume of frontoparietal regions that associated with goal-oriented and executive functions. Childhood adversity including threat reduces the volume of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), amygdala (AMG), and hippocampus (HPC). Chronic early life stress also blunts the dopaminergic activity in the PFC. Alcohol disrupts the serotonergic activity in the PFC. Altered functions of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) unable to inhibit the increased emotional output from subcortical structures such as the hyperactivation of AMG in IED. Reduced connectivity between MPFC and AMG was reported in violent offenders. Adults having experienced childhood adversity and do not express high adult trait anger were due to higher white matter integrity in pathways connecting the PFC and AMG.