Maternal Anxiety and ERP Responses to Happy, Angry, and Fearful Faces in 7-Month- Olds

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Biological Processes: Neuroscience and Genetics

Abstract

One of the strongest determinants of infants’ cognitive development, is input from caregivers, specifically mothers (Belsky et al., 2015). Increased exposure to maternal psychological distress and negative emotions can alter infant emotional-cognitive development (Goodman & Gotlib, 1999) as well as infant emotion processing (Spence et. al., 2002). Infants are able to discriminate between negative and positive facial expressions and use these facial cues to disambiguate uncertain situations and regulate their behavior accordingly (Grossman et al., 2007). However, the relation between maternal mood factors and neural correlates of emotion processing in infancy has not yet been widely established. As such, this research intends to better understand this relation by examining the role of maternal anxiety on infants’ neural responses to various facial expressions. Method: Thirty-four mothers (M = 33.1, SD = 3.2) completed a ten-item version of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory to measure both state level anxiety (Spielberg et al., 1983). The emotional processing of thirty-four 7-month-old infants (M = 7.35, SD = 0.24, n = 29, 45.5% female, 76.5% Caucasian) was measured using electroencephalography (EEG), while infants viewed happy, fearful, and angry facial expressions. The neural responses were measured through event-related potentials (ERPs). The Negative central (Nc) component was used as an indication of infant’s attention to the facial expressions (De Haan et. al., 2004). Moreover, difference scores between mean Nc amplitudes to fearful and happy faces, as well as angry and happy faces were calculated for each participant Results: We found that greater maternal anxiety was associated with greater difference in infants’ Nc amplitudes to fearful faces compared to happy faces (𝑅2 = 0.21, F(1, 27) = 7.06, p < 0.05). In other words, greater maternal anxiety was related to higher levels of infant attention to fearful faces relative to happy faces. Maternal anxiety was not significantly associated to infant processing of angry faces relative to happy faces (𝑅2 = 0.06, F(1, 27) = 2.92, p = 0.09). Conclusion: The results suggest the relevance of maternal psychopathology in infants’ attention to emotional cues. Attentional bias to threat cues is related to anxiety in children and adults. Infants’ attention bias to threat cues is perhaps early evidence of both the development of anxiety and one pathway through which intergenerational transmission of anxiety occurs. Ultimately, the relation between maternal anxiety and infants’ ERP responses provides a more nuanced understanding into the development of anxiety disorders.

Group Authors

Neurodevelopmental Research Program

Authors

• Naitra Ramchander, University of Denver
  Presenting Author

• Özlü Aran, University of Denver
  Non-Presenting Author

• Valeriia Vlasenko, Wake Forest University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah Garcia, University of Denver
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elysia Davis, University of Denver
  Non-Presenting Author

• Benjamin Hankin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author