Child Maltreatment: Etiology, Prevention, Neurobiological and Psychosocial Consequences, and Intervention Strategies

Dear Colleagues,

Please consider submitting your valuable work on child protection, early life stress, or adverse childhood experiences to our Special Issue on child maltreatment. 

Child maltreatment is a major source of early life stress in human development. As early life stress has been known to have substantial effects on telomere length, DNA-methylation, inflammatory and immune responses, as well as glucocorticoid sensitivity and dopaminergic pathways, this issue is rapidly evolving and of utmost importance. While research in primates and rodents has provided a multitude of novel findings, the impact of early life stress and, specifically, child maltreatment in human development is still vastly understudied. In general, neurobiology as well as physiology has been shown to be vastly altered in victims of childhood abuse, and three-generational studies revealed that approximately fifty percent of abused parents transmit this history of abuse to their offspring via neurobiological, psychological, and epigenetic mechanisms. 

This Special Issue aims to close this research gap and encourages articles targeting child maltreatment in terms of etiology, prevention, neurobiological, and psychosocial as well as mental consequences through short- and long-term observations. Also, the evaluation of community-centered (and other forms of) intervention and child protection strategies should be featured. Another significant topic is emotional abuse, which, despite its frequency, still seems to be vastly understudied. Furthermore, endocrine consequences, e.g., a potentially altered HPA axis functioning and differences in prenatal programming in HoA victims, is a subject of interest in this Special Issue. 

Complex or developmental trauma disorder with transdiagnostic characteristics of emotional dysregulation and relational disturbances are innovative constructs in need of scientific elaboration. The negative effects of child maltreatment on their ability to regulate emotions and tolerate stress and tension need to be focussed on, specifically in relation to child psychiatric presentation, as victims of childhood abuse are themselves at risk of maladaptive development—childhood maltreatment appears to have an impact on the next generation as well. Children with behavioral disorders should be a central focus in this Special Issue, as recent reasarch reveals an immense prevalence of child maltreatment in this specific population. 

In general, the research in this Special Issue should focus on child or adult victims of chronic maltreatment and placement into foster care or institutional deprivation. One important target is developmental pathways linking child abuse and child mental illness that include neurobiological mechanisms or genetic influences and gene-environment interactions. Articles examining the impacts of socio-economic or political developments on the prevalence of child maltreatment will also be welcomed. Furthermore, child maltreatment in digital settings, which represent a novel threat, is also important potential topic for publications in this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Eva Möhler
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Children is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• child maltreatment
• child abuse
• child neglect
• early life stress
• adverse childhood experiences