Perinatal Substance Use affects the Neural Basis of Mother-Infant Attachment

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Maternal behaviors that modulate child development are governed by an evolutionary conserved Maternal Behavior Neurocircuit (MBN) that is vulnerable to substance use disorders (SUD). Although SUD constitute devastating public health risks, little is known about the impact of perinatal SUD on brain adaptations to motherhood. During pregnancy and the early postpartum, the MBN undergoes dynamic changes that prepare her to develop attachments toward the fetus as well as the emotional bonds with her infant after childbirth. However, evidence provided in this symposium suggests that SUD disrupt brain adaptation to motherhood and increase risks for negative mother-infant relationships and adverse child outcomes. The first study shows that SUD is associated with dampened responses to happy faces of own-infant in MBN associated with oxytocin and maternal motivation. The second study demonstrates that during the first trimester during pregnancy, cannabis is associated with dampened prefrontal cortex responses to infant cues (infant cry sounds). The third paper indicates that postpartum alcohol use disrupts early postpartum remodeling of the MBN according to less-sensitive responses to infants' social cues. The fourth paper focuses on a brain model of normally reciprocally-inhibiting maternal care and defense/aggression sub-circuits that are disrupted by OUD and treated with buprenorphine medication (BM). Consistent with treatment benefits, BM drives maternal care physiology, yet also exacerbates postpartum stress and reduces maternal sensitivity. Our collection of study findings expands upon the nascent literature on neural bases of parenting behavior as a function of substance use.

Sub Unit

• Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Chairs

• Pilyoung Kim, University of Denver

• James E. Swain, Stony Brook Unviersity

Individual Presentations

• Mothers with substance addictions show reduced reward response to their own infants: Can intranasal oxytocin be a novel treatment? - Presenting Author: Sohye Kim, University of Massachusetts Medical School; Non-Presenting Author: Lane Strathearn, University of Iowa

• Changes in neural activation among cannabis users in response to infant cry during the pregnancy - Presenting Author: Shannon Powers, University of Denver; Non-Presenting Author: Xu Han, University of Colorado-Boulder; Non-Presenting Author: Jacqueline Martinez, University of Denver; Non-Presenting Author: Tom Yeh, University of Colorado-Boulder; Non-Presenting Author: Pilyoung Kim, University of Denver

• Maternal postpartum alcohol use and neural activation to infant cues in the fourth trimester: Preliminary results - Presenting Author: Margaret Bublitz, The Miriam Hospital; Non-Presenting Author: James E. Swain, Stony Brook Unviersity; Non-Presenting Author: Shoshanna Lustig, The Miriam Hospital; Non-Presenting Author: Daniel P Dickstein, McLean Hospital

• Maternal opioid use disorder and brain physiology during empathy - Presenting Author: James E. Swain, Stony Brook Unviersity; Non-Presenting Author: Shaun Ho, Stony Brook University