Childhood Trauma and Frontoparietal Network Connectivity During Working Memory Task Performance in Individuals With Schizophrenia and Healthy Participants.

Overview

1. School of Psychology and Institute for Health Discovery and Innovation University of Galway Galway Ireland
2. Centre for Neuroimaging, Cognition and Genomics (NICOG), University of Galway Galway Ireland
3. Academic Unit of Neurology, School of Medicine Trinity College Dublin Dublin Ireland
4. School of Medicine University of Galway Galway Ireland
5. School of Biological and Chemical Sciences and Institute for Health Discovery and Innovation University of Galway Galway Ireland
6. Pharmacology & Therapeutics, School of Pharmacy & Medical Sciences University of Galway Galway Ireland

Abstract

Schizophrenia is associated with altered frontoparietal connectivity, which supports higher‐order cognition, including working memory. Childhood trauma has been linked to altered functional connectivity and reduced cognitive performance in individuals with schizophrenia and controls. Prior evidence suggests that trauma‐related default mode dysconnectivity mediates the association between trauma and cognition. We hypothesised that childhood trauma would be associated with altered frontoparietal connectivity during a working memory task and that such connectivity changes would mediate the relationship between trauma and working memory. Childhood trauma, working memory and fMRI data were collected from individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (n = 38) and controls (n = 128). fMRI data were preprocessed in CONN, and seed‐based connectivity analyses were performed for four frontoparietal seeds (bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices). Connectivity was contrasted across (a) diagnosis and (b) trauma severity. Moderated mediation analyses tested the associations between trauma, connectivity and working memory, with diagnosis as a moderator. Across all participants, higher physical neglect severity predicted poorer working memory performance. Stronger inverse connectivity between left dorsolateral prefrontal and frontal medial cortices predicted better working memory performance. As expected, patients showed widespread frontoparietal dysconnectivity relative to controls, but no differences in frontoparietal connectivity were observed across trauma severity groups. Frontoparietal connectivity did not mediate the association between trauma and working memory, although diagnosis moderated both the trauma‐connectivity and connectivity‐cognition associations. We conclude that, unlike previous evidence suggesting a mediating role for the default mode network, frontoparietal connectivity did not mediate the trauma‐cognition association, possibly suggesting the unique significance of default mode network dysconnectivity in linking trauma to cognition in psychosis.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Code

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Code Availability

The codes supporting the findings of this study are available from the first author (AW) upon reasonable request.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

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Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author (GD) upon reasonable request.

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Version 3, 28 September 2026

• Publisher: n/a → Wiley

Version 1, 27 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 8 authors, 5 keywords, 12 MeSH terms, 3 funders, 87 references, 2 RRIDs.

Cite

This paper

Warren, A., Mothersill, D., Corley, E., Morris, D. W., Hallahan, B., McKernan, D. P., McDonald, C., & Donohoe, G. (2026). Childhood Trauma and Frontoparietal Network Connectivity During Working Memory Task Performance in Individuals With Schizophrenia and Healthy Participants. The European journal of neuroscience, 64(5), e70675. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.70675

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