(PS7-91) Perinatal and Childhood Adversity Effects on Psychotic-like Experiences in Middle Childhood

Early life adversities (ELAs) occurring during perinatal (e.g., obstetric complications) and childhood (e.g., trauma exposure) periods often co-occur and are robust risk factors for psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) throughout development. ELA exposure during these distinct sensitive periods, as well as different exposures within these periods, may differentially affect PLE phenotypes. To date, understanding the role of ELAs in the etiology of PLEs is limited by reliance on older aged, high risk/help-seeking samples. Characterizing the cumulative and specific effects of diverse perinatal and childhood ELAs on PLEs in a nonclinical, heterogenous sample of youth is critical for advancing prevention and intervention efforts for psychosis-spectrum phenotypes. The current analysis leverages data from 5,954 non-twin, non-adopted, youth enrolled in the demographically representative Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. Seven perinatal and eight childhood insult exposures were adapted from pervious characterization of the ABCD baseline sample and aggregated into cumulative risk scores. Hierarchical linear models tested main effects and interactions of early life insult burden (cumulative number of perinatal and childhood insults) on PLE quantity and associated distress at ages 9-10. Follow-up analyses examined the effects of individual perinatal and childhood exposures on PLE quantity. Models controlled for age in months, biological sex, and maternal age at birth. Study sites were included as random effects. Over 80% of youth in the sample experienced at least one of the 15 assessed ELAs. Perinatal and childhood insult exposure were moderately correlated (rho=0.22). Independently, perinatal and childhood insult exposure was significantly associated with elevated PLE quantity (B=0.16 and 0.39, respectively) and distress (B=0.38 and 0.90, respectively). However, perinatal and childhood insults did not interact to affect PLE quantity or associated distress. Late exposure to substances in utero and unexpected pregnancy were the most potent perinatal insults (B=0.67 and 0.46), whereas socioeconomic disadvantage and parental substance use were the most potent childhood insults (B=0.53 and 0.47). Consistent with previous research, ELAs occurring during perinatal and childhood periods independently confer risk for PLEs. However, temporally distinct ELAs did not interact to amplify or attenuate PLEs in this sample, suggesting their effects may be restricted to distinct sensitive windows. Further, our results highlight that diverse ELAs are independently associated with PLEs, the impact scaling with the quantity of ELAs experienced. Also notable is the robustness of findings to distress, compared to quantity of PLE experiences, suggesting that these environmental factors may confer additional risk for the appraisal and emotional impact of these experiences above and beyond the emergence of psychosis-spectrum phenomena alone. The co-occurrence of perinatal and childhood insults, combined with their independent effects on PLEs, warrants careful consideration of potential timing effects in ELA exposure to advance prevention and intervention efforts for psychosis-spectrum phenotypes.