1-008 - How a Human Mother’s Brain Adapts, Maladapts, and is Improved: Roles of Culture, Prenatal and Postnatal Risks, and Intervention

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

There is a growing understanding of the neural mechanisms of human maternal attachment. Human mothers’ neural responses to infants are associated with their behavioral sensitivity observed during interactions with infants. The current symposium aims to provide understanding of the core neural basis for mother-infant attachment, how prenatal and postnatal risk factors influence the maternal brain, and finally whether the negative changes in the maternal brain may be reversed by an intervention effort. The first paper presents converging evidence on neural, psychological and physiological responses to infants in new mothers across diverse cultural contexts. The paper highlights the common core neural processes of mother-infant attachment, which sets the foundation of understanding maternal brain’s successful and unsuccessful adaptation to parenthood. The second paper presents the role of prenatal risk factors, specifically prenatal maternal anxiety, in maternal brain adaptation to parenthood. This longitudinal study suggests that negative effects of maternal anxiety in mothers’ neural adaptation to parenthood may emerge during pregnancy. The third paper presents evidence that socioeconomic stress may also disrupt mothers’ neural adaptation to parenthood. Low family income is associated with dampened neural sensitivity to positive infant expressions and elevated neural sensitivity to negative infant expressions, which further influence disruptions in maternal behavioral responsiveness to own infants. The last presentation suggests that aberrant neural sensitivity to infants among distressed mothers may be improved via an intervention. Among depressed mothers, interventions to improve mental health reduced parental stress and strengthened neural functional connectivity in response to their infant.

Sub Unit

• Biology and Neuroscience

Chair

• Pilyoung Kim, University of Denver

Individual Presentations

• Genetic, Neural, and Behavioral Mechanisms in Parent-Infant Interaction - Presenting Author: Gianluca Esposito, Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento; Marc Bornstein, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, MD, USA

• Prenatal Anxiety and Neural Responses to Infant and Adult Faces during Pregnancy and Postpartum - Presenting Author: Helena Rutherford, Yale Child Study Center; Grace Austin, Yale Child Study Center; Jonathan Lee, Yale Child Study Center; Linda Mayes, Yale Child Study Center

• Socioeconomic Disadvantage, Neural Responses to Infant Emotions, and Emotional Availability among First-time New Mothers - Presenting Author: Pilyoung Kim, University of Denver; Christian G. Capistrano, University of Denver; Andrew J Erhart, University of Denver; Rachel Schiff, University of Denver; Nanxi Xu, University of Denver

• Parent-Child Intervention Decreases Stress and Increases Maternal Brain Activity and Connectivity in Response to Own Baby-Cry - Presenting Author: James E Swain, Department of Psychiatry, Stony Brook University; S. Shuan Ho, Department of Psychiatry, SUNY – Stony Brook; Katherine Rosenblum, Univeristy of Michigan; Diana Morelen, East Tennessee State University; Carolyn Joy Dayton, Wayne State University; Maria Muzik, University of Michigan