Child abuse, unfortunately, has become a common thing that happens in society. Many children are abused. The lucky few are removed from their abusers and receive therapeutic help, if available, while abuse of others continues to go unreported; emotional abuse seems to go unreported because people tend to ignore it. People who experience emotional abuse at a young age are more susceptible to depression because their emotional neglect leads to feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt that could trigger symptoms of depression; they may think of themselves in a more negative light due to the negativity around them instead of thinking positively about themselves. To support or refute this claim, in my research paper I reviewed two studies that examined how child abuse could lead to depression or major depressive disorder (MDD); the studies were correlational and experimental. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay Hanson, Hariri, and Williamson's (2015) first research paper was a longitudinal correlational study examining how emotional neglect (EN), ventral striatum activity was related to depression; the ventral striatum is a subcortical structure that supports reward responsiveness and learning. It has been theorized that the ventral striatum is linked to depression due to reduced reward-related activity of the ventral striatum. Psychological factors that protect against major depressive disorder, including optimism and a positive self-concept, are linked to greater reward-related ventral striatum activity. Some studies have noted that low activity in the ventral striatum is present in abused children and adults who were abused as children. The study used longitudinal neuroimaging and behavioral data to test their hypothesis that changes in reward-related ventral striatum activity would be linked to emotional neglect (abuse) leading to the development of depressive symptoms later in life; higher levels of emotional neglect (abuse) would be related to a large decrease in ventral striatum activity. The study followed 106 participants initially recruited for a study on depression and alcohol use disorders. They completed in-person interviews, self-report behavioral assessments, and MRI scanning; they were recalled annually to complete interviews, questionnaires and follow up MRI scans. All participants had to be free of psychopathology except anxiety, which 16 participants had. Depressive symptoms were measured in the Child Mood and Feelings version of the Questionnaire, which has high consistency and test-retest reliability. Emotional neglect was assessed using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire; participants were assessed at the first and second scanning sessions and then averaged to create a measure for emotional neglect. To assess reward-related activity of the ventral striatum, participants participated in a card-guessing design with three blocks that were majority positive feedback, then negative feedback, and then no feedback; participants would win a cash reward based on their performance. The results supported their hypothesis. Emotional neglect was associated with changes in ventral striatum activity. The lower the ventral striatum activity, the more emotionally neglected the participants reported;the more ventral striatum was present, the less emotionally neglected the participants were. Depressive symptoms were also associated with low ventral striatum activity. So when emotional neglect had a high score, the ventral striatum had a low score which then affected the person's mood which produced depressive symptoms as increased activity in the ventral striatum led to a more optimistic and positive self-image. Furthermore, change in reward-related (positive feedback) ventral striatum activity was linked to emotional neglect and depressive symptoms. The study continues to discuss that when parents are emotionally unavailable and unresponsive, difficulties in emotion regulation may occur; the lack of interactions could lead to negative feelings about oneself and low self-esteem. To possibly prevent depression in children with a history of abuse (emotionally, physically, mentally and sexually), the study results show the possibility of using a drug, activity or therapy that helped increase the activity of the striatum ventral. If a child who had been abused was still able to respond to rewards or positive feedback and had low optimism, self-esteem and positive thinking, depression could be counteracted. However, children who are abused fail to develop a positive mindset about themselves due to the negativity in their lives and the punishments inflicted on them. I believe that abused children may not have responded to positive feedback during the paradigm due to the irrational reasons they were punished or mistreated by their guardians. The study, however, is limited due to the short period of time the participants were followed; If researchers had followed them over the past two years, would the results have been different? Could we have observed an increase in reward-related ventral striatum activity and participants would have developed depression? Furthermore, since this was a correlational study, it does not establish that depression is the result of mistreatment leading to low activity of the ventral striatum; the study shows correlation and not causation. Therefore, it neither proves nor disproves my statement. To better understand how maltreatment affects children, I examined an experimental study by Guyer et al., (2006), in which children were asked to play a game that required them to guess for money. rewards (positive feedback); their selection speed would be recorded by the computer they were playing on. The researchers took children with a history of maltreatment from the DCF (Department of Children's Services) in Connecticut and a control group of children obtained from advertisements who were not maltreated; the children were not randomly assigned. They obtained permission from each child's legal guardian and also the children's consent. Children were paid $15 and parents received $25. They would be given choices that would push them to take risks for the greatest reward; they would choose what they thought the computer would choose (they would be given percentages on the probability of the computer landing on the number) and would win the corresponding amount of money if the robot chose the point they had guessed. The independent variable was the chance of winning and the dependent variable was the response time (to choose between a risky choice or a safe choice). The results of the experiment were that children with a history of maltreatment were less likely to make a risky choice than the control group of children. THE.