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From psychological to environmental risk mechanisms: Advancing the study of prenatal influences on biobehavioral development

Thu, April 8, 1:10 to 2:40pm EDT (1:10 to 2:40pm EDT), Virtual

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Emerging evidence shows the importance of women’s physical exposures and psychological experiences during pregnancy for her infant’s brain and behavioral development. Maternal exposures to environmental hazards, such as heavy metals, or to psychosocial stressors, such as racism or poverty, are increasingly being linked to offspring’s risk for developmental delays, cognitive deficits, poor academic outcomes, and risk for psychiatric illness later in life. This symposium brings together the findings from three different studies that identify relations, potential mechanisms, and interactive effects between these prenatal factors and postnatal outcomes in infancy and toddlerhood. Presentation 1 examines psychological stress across each trimester of pregnancy and how the trajectory of experience influences the functional connectivity and negative affect of offspring over the first two years of life. Expanding to sociocultural stressors, Presentation 2 demonstrates that maternal experiences of racial discrimination during pregnancy are associated with altered functional connectivity of the hippocampus and amygdala to the prefrontal cortex in newborns. Presentation 3 demonstrates that psychosocial stressors, such as economic strain and depression, moderate the influence of prenatal heavy metal exposure on later infant brain development, impacting subcortical regions that are also highlighted in the work of the other presentations. Our discussion will expand on these findings to review how systems of stress (from psychological to sociocultural) impact early development, as well as implications for prevention/intervention and policy to reduce negative outcomes and improve the life-long trajectories of children and their families.

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