Thanks again for all your helpful input on this work, Val - really appreciate your support!

Thanks Ted!!

Super grateful for the amazing co-authors and collaborators who made this work possible:
@ted-satterthwaite.bsky.social, @bart-larsen.bsky.social, and my advisor Luke Hyde!

We highlight several avenues to further delineate how experience interacts with the plasticity of the developing human brain – longitudinal designs, multimodal in vivo indices of neuroplasticity, heterogeneity of adversity exposure, and consideration of nurturing and promotive experiences

Third, drawing from in vivo proxies of neuroplasticity (e.g., myelination, intrinsic activity, metabolite concentrations), we argue that adversity may dampen or amplify the magnitude of neuroplasticity

Second, neuroplasticity is itself malleable and sensitive to experience (i.e., plasticity as an outcome). Consistent with prior theory, we propose that adversity may accelerate or delay brain maturation, thereby shifting the developmental timing of neuroplasticity

For example, the neurobiological effects of adversity exposure may be more widespread, and localized to early-maturing limbic regions, earlier in life – but more localized to later-maturing prefrontal regions later in development

First, we discuss how the state and location of neuroplasticity during the timing of exposure may modulate how adversity becomes biologically embedded (i.e., plasticity as a moderator)

We next propose three ways in which experience, focusing on adversity, may interact with neurodevelopmental plasticity. Understanding these dynamics can help elucidate how experience shapes development, risk, and resilience, and may ultimately inform the type and timing of interventions

Synthesizing across developmental periods, we describe how neuroplasticity may be globally heightened during early childhood and localized later on, progressing along a sensorimotor-association axis across childhood and adolescence

Neuroplasticity has been difficult to define and assess – from process or capacity to change, to experience-dependent or expectant mechanisms, to separating experience-driven remodeling from development and genetic programming. We focus on plasticity as the brain’s capacity to adapt to experience

Huge congrats Elena!!