Pathways between early-life adversity and adolescent self-harm: the mediating role of inflammation in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.

Young people who have been exposed to ACEs are a group at high risk of self-harm. The association between ACEs and self-harm does not appear to be mediated by an inflammatory process in childhood, as indexed by peripheral levels of circulating inflammatory markers measured in childhood. Further research is needed to identify alternative psychological and biological mechanisms underlying this relationship.