Corporal punishment can affect brain activity and trigger anxiety and depression

Do not hit your child
.
That's the traditional view from decades of research linking corporal punishment to declining adolescent health and negative effects on behavior, including an increased
risk of anxiety and depression.
Now, a new study explores how corporal punishment affects the nervous system to produce these adverse effects
.

Corporal punishment can simply be defined as "the wilful infliction of bodily pain
in any manner for the purpose of punishment, correction, discipline, instruction, or any other cause.
" "This violence, especially perpetrated by parents, evokes a complex emotional experience
.
The researchers, led by Dr.
Kreshnik Burani and in collaboration with Dr.
Greg Hajcak of Florida State University, hope to understand the neural basis of this experience and its subsequent consequences
.

The study was published by Elsevier in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging
.

The researchers conducted a longitudinal study
of 149 boys and girls ages 11 to 14 from the Tallahassee area of Florida.
Participants were subjected to a continuously recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) — a non-invasive technique
that measures brain wave activity from the scalp — while performing a video game-like task and a currency guessing game.
Based on EEG data, the researchers determined two scores for each participant — one reflecting their neural response to error and the other reflecting their neural response to
reward.

After two years, participants and their parents completed a series of questionnaires to screen for anxiety and depression and to assess how parents were educated
.
Unsurprisingly, children who have experienced corporal punishment are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression
.

"Our paper first replicates the well-known negative effects of corporal punishment on children's health: we found that corporal punishment is associated with
increased symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescence.
However, our study further proves that corporal punishment may affect brain activity and neurodevelopment," Burani said
.

This is reflected in the fact that adolescents who are subjected to corporal punishment respond more neurologically to errors and are more slow
to respond to rewards.

"Specifically," Burani adds, "our paper links
corporal punishment to increased sensitivity of nerves to making mistakes and decreased sensitivity of nerves to receiving rewards during adolescence.
" In previous and ongoing research with Dr.
Hajcak, we found that increased neural responses to errors were associated with anxiety and anxiety risk, while decreased neural responses to rewards were associated with
depression and depressive risk.
Thus, corporal punishment may alter specific neurodevelopmental pathways that make children oversensitive to their own mistakes and less responsive to rewards and other positive events in the environment, increasing the risk of
anxiety and depression.
”

Cameron Carter, MD, editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, said: "Using EEG, this study provides new insights into what may be the mechanisms by which corporal punishment adversely affects children's mental health, as well as which nervous systems
may be affected.
"

This study sheds new light on the neural basis of depression and anxiety and helps guide interventions
for at-risk youth.

Journal Reference:

1. Kreshnik Burani, C.
   J.
   Brush, Chandler Spahr, George M.
   Slavich, Alexandria Meyer, Greg Hajcak.
   Corporal Punishment is Uniquely Associated with a Greater Neural Response to Errors and Blunted Neural Response to Rewards in Adolescence.
   Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 2022; DOI: 10.
   1016/j.
   bpsc.
   2022.
   09.
   004