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Introduction: A new line of insomnia research focuses on the developmental trajectories from early live stress to insomnia in adulthood. Adverse childhood experiences (ACE's) might create a vulnerability for later maladaptive coping with distress, as seen in chronic hyperarousal or insomnia. In an functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, failure to dissociate the neurobiological components of shame from autobiographical shameful memories in insomnia was reflected by continued activation of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), which may be a result of maladaptive coping in the wake of ACE's. Following up on that study, the current pilot study explores the relation between ACE's, shame coping-styles, adult insomnia, hyperarousal, and neurobiology of autobiographical memory., Methods: We used existing data ( N = 57) from individuals with insomnia ( N = 27) and controls ( N = 30), and asked these participants to complete the childhood trauma questionnaire (CTQ). Two structural equation models were used to test the hypotheses that shame-coping styles and insomnia symptom severity mediate the association between ACE's and (1) self-rated hyperarousal symptoms and (2) dACC activation to recall of autobiographical memories., Results: For the association between ACE's and hyperarousal, there was a significant mediation of shame-coping style ( p < 0.05). This model also indicated worse shame coping with more ACE's ( p < 0.05) and worse insomnia symptoms with more ACES's ( p < 0.05), but no association between shame coping and insomnia symptoms ( p = 0.154). In contrast, dACC activation to recall of autobiographical memories could only be explained by its direct association with ACE's ( p < 0.05), albeit that in this model more ACE's were also associated with worse insomnia symptoms., Discussion: These findings could have an implication for the approach of treatment for insomnia. It could be focused more on trauma and emotional processing instead of conventional sleep interventions. Future studies are recommended to investigate the relationship mechanism between childhood trauma and insomnia, with additional factors of attachment styles, personality, and temperament., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Schalkwijk, Van Someren, Nicolai, Uijttewaal and Wassing.)

Many psychiatric disorders are a result of a disturbance in or exhaustion of the human stress response system. It is striking that many of these disorders such as depression, anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress and somatoform and dissociative disorders are more prevalent in women. There are various explanations for this differing prevalence: it can be attributed to molecular, genetic, neurophysiological, relational and neurohormonal differences. Among the topics discussed are differences in exposure to chronic and traumatic stressors, the role of vasopressin and oxytocin in recovery and neurophysiological differences, the differentiating effect of hormones and neuropeptides such as oxytocin and vasopressin, the tend and befriend response and factors such as abuse and attachment disruption in early childhood.