Children who experienced abuse or neglect displayed disrupted development and decreased ability to maintain stable function of internal bodily systems, according to a new study led by researchers in the Penn State Department of Biobehavioral Health.
The study, published today (May 7) in Molecular Psychiatry, was led by Associate Professor Idan Shalev and Qiaofeng Ye, who earned her doctorate from Penn State in 2025 and is now completing a postdoctoral fellowship in Shalev's lab.
The researchers also found that various types of maltreatment affected children differently and that boys were more susceptible to these effects than girls. This study could someday lead to the prevention of health problems in children who have experienced abuse, the authors said, by identifying how physiological changes due to abuse manifest in the body.
