Childhood physical neglect promotes development of mild cognitive impairment in old age – A case-control study

This study aimed to investigate the role of early traumatic experiences in development of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in Chinese elderly people. Seventy six patients and 61 controls were selected and assigned into two study groups, MCI and control, respectively. Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) was used for assessment of early trauma, episodic memory and association learning scales for memory evaluation. In addition, event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured using electroencephalography (EEG) to indicate brain electrical activity of subjects during memory/cognitive tests. MCI patients showed higher scores of physical neglect and lower scores of emotional abuse in childhood than control group. Physical neglect score was negatively correlated with scores of MMSE, MoCA, episodic memory, calculation, and the amplitude of CzP300, FzP300 and PzP300, while a positive correlation was seen between the score of physical neglect and the latency of PzN200, FzN200, CzN200, CzP300, FzP300 and PzP300. The score of emotional abuse was weakly correlated with FzP300 amplitude, but not with any other ERP components. Our results suggested that early childhood exposure to physical neglect may lead to impairment in learning and memory, particularly in the associative learning and episodic memory, in old age.