McKenzie, Kelly2018-03-142018-03-142017-06https://hdl.handle.net/11299/194573University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. June 2017. Major: Child Psychology. Advisor: Kathleen Thomas. 1 computer file (PDF); v, 99 pages.Early life stress (ELS), including experiences of abuse and neglect, poses a threat to the typical trajectory of development, and is associated with altered emotion processing and regulation. The neural structures underlying emotion processing and regulation, the amygdala and prefrontal cortex (PFC), show both structural and functional differences following early life stress. However, there is little understanding of how baseline intrinsic connectivity between the amygdala and PFC is impacted by ELS. Resting state amygdala connectivity was explored in two samples who had experienced ELS. Study 1 included youth who had experienced institutional rearing, an extreme form of deprivation. Post-institutionalized youth showed increased amygdala-PFC connectivity and decreased amygdala-insula connectivity in comparison to non-adopted peers. Study 2 explored connectivity in adults with a history of childhood maltreatment. Altered amygdala connectivity was observed in relation to the type and timing of maltreatment. Additionally, an interaction between maltreatment history and self-reported resilience was observed in amygdala-caudate connectivity. Both studies provided evidence of disrupted amygdala resting-state connectivity in association with ELS. Results suggest that in addition to amygdala-PFC circuitry, amygdala connectivity with other regions of the brain is sensitive to ELS.enThesis or Dissertation