Prolonged Rather Than Early Childhood Parent-Child Separation Predicts Change in Molecular Markers of Cellular Aging: A Consideration of the Role of Adolescence.

Early life adversity is a major risk factor for the onset of psychopathology, and cellular aging may be a mechanism underlying these associations. It is unknown whether and how the pattern (timing and duration) of parent-child separation is associated with accelerated cellular aging, particularly with respect to functional aging and replicative senescence, indexed by mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn) elevation and telomere length (TL) attrition. This cohort study included 252 rural adolescents (mean age 11.62 years, SD: 1.56). Nearly one in five participants were persistently separated from both parents since birth. Compared with participants who never separated from their parents, adolescents with prolonged parent-child separation had higher acceleration both in functional aging and replicative senescence of cells. However, that was not the case in adolescents who experienced parent-child separation in early childhood but regained stable parental care during adolescence. These findings indicate that pubertal development reopens a window of opportunity for buffering the adverse biological effect based on significant improvements in the supportiveness of the caregiving environment relative to that in childhood. Translating such knowledge to inform intervention and prevention strategies for youths exposed to adversity is a critical goal for the field.