2-110 - Role of Maternal Distress in Brains of Two Generations – New Mothers and Infants

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The adverse effect of maternal distress on infant cognitive and socioemotional development is well known. However, little is known about the role of maternal distress in brain development. The first study presents evidence that exposure to prenatal stress is associated with aberrant fetal brain development as assessed at birth. Increased maternal IL-6 concentration during pregnancy, indicating exposure to prenatal stress, is associated with the neonate’s lower functional connectivity between neural regions involved in cognitive and emotional control. While prenatal exposure to maternal distress may directly influence the development of the fetal brain via mothers’ biological stress system, postnatal exposure to maternal distress can continue to alter an infant’s brain development via a suboptimal psychosocial environment. Poverty is a socioeconomic adversity that increases the risk of maternal distress and harsh parenting. The second study suggests that at around age 1, infants of lower-income households exhibit heightened striatal reactivity to their own mother’s voice as well as heightened anterior cingulate reactivity to angry voices, which may indicate increased efforts for processing and regulating negative emotion. The third study provides an understanding of how maternal distress may also disrupt mothers’ own neural adaptation to parenthood. While mothers exhibit greater neural sensitivity to infants compared to non-mothers, depression reduces this neural sensitivity to own infant in new mothers. The discussion will provide insight on the role of maternal distress in both mothers and infants and how the behavioral and neuroimaging research may support each other to improve our understanding of the topic.

Sub Unit

• Biology and Neuroscience

Chair

• Pilyoung Kim, University of Denver

Discussant

• Sherryl H. Goodman, Emory University

Individual Presentations

• Maternal Immune Activation by Interleukin-6 and Neonatal Connectivity of the Salience Network - Presenting Author: Marisa N Spann, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons; Dustin F Scheinost, Yale University School of Medicine; Todd Constable, Yale University School of Medicine; Bradley S Peterson, Institute for the Developing Mind, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles; Catherine Monk, Columbia University

• Role of Family Income in Infant’s Neural Responses to Mother’s Emotional Voice During the First Year - Pilyoung Kim, University of Denver; Andrew J Erhart, University of Denver; Presenting Author: Rebekah Tribble, University of Denver; Pamela M Cole, Penn State University

• The Neural Correlates of Responsiveness to Infant Pictures; a Comparison of Depressed and Nondepressed Mothers and Nonmothers - Presenting Author: Aya Dudin, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto at Mississauga; Kathleen E Wonch, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto at Mississauga; Andrew Davis, Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University; Steiner Meir, McMaster University; Alison S Fleming, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto at Mississauga; Geoffrey B Hall, Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University