{
  "id": 15870257,
  "title": "Neuroscientists uncover brain clues to why some people with childhood trauma struggle to look forward to things",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/21/neuroscientists-uncover-brain-clues-to-why-some-people-with-childhood",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-10-21T10:00:39.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "PsyPost",
    "slug": "psypost",
    "url": "https://www.psypost.org/neuroscientists-uncover-brain-clues-to-why-some-people-with-childhood-trauma-struggle-to-look-forward-to-things/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A recent brain imaging study published in The Journal of Neuroscience reveals a connection between a memory-related brain region and the brain's reward centers, which may help explain why some individuals with a history of childhood trauma struggle to anticipate pleasurable experiences. The hippocampus, a brain structure involved in memory formation and novelty detection, shows weaker activity and connectivity in young adults with higher levels of early life adversity. This reduced connectivity is associated with a diminished ability to look forward to rewarding experiences, suggesting that targeting memory and novelty-processing circuits could provide a new approach to addressing motivational issues in trauma-exposed populations. To conduct their research, the study's authors recruited participants from a broader project examining psychosis risk in young adults. Participants completed a modified version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire Short-Form, assessing experiences of emotional abuse, neglect, and physical harm before age 16. They also filled out the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale, which measures both anticipatory and consummatory pleasure, with lower scores indicating higher levels of anhedonia. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers examined the anterior hippocampus, a region that heavily connects with reward circuits. They measured resting-state brain activity while participants focused on a cross on a screen and then assessed their performance in a task designed to measure how the brain responds to novelty and goal pursuit. This novel approach to studying the biological underpinnings of anhedonia, particularly in relation to childhood trauma, could pave the way for innovative treatments targeting these specific brain circuits.",
  "summary": "Among young adults with more childhood trauma, weaker communication between the hippocampus and the brain’s reward hubs was linked to a reduced ability to look forward to pleasurable experiences, but not to enjoying them in the moment.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}