Department of Health Studies, University of Chicago, USA.
Neurosci Lett. 2012 Sep 6;525(1):17-22. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2012.07.016. Epub 2012 Jul 20.
A failure of neural changes initiated by the estrogen surge in late pregnancy to reverse the valence of infant stimuli from aversive to rewarding is associated with dysfunctional maternal behavior in nonhuman mammals. Estrogen receptor-α plays the crucial role in mediating these neural effects of estrogen priming. This preliminary study examines associations between estrogen receptor-α gene polymorphisms and human maternal behavior. Two polymorphisms were associated with human negative maternal parenting. Furthermore, hemodynamic responses in functional magnetic resonance imaging to child stimuli in neural regions associated with social cognition fully mediated the association between genetic variation and negative parenting. This suggests testable hypotheses regarding a biological pathway between genetic variants and dysfunctional human maternal parenting.
在妊娠后期，雌激素激增引发的神经变化未能将婴儿刺激的效价从厌恶转变为奖励，这与非人类哺乳动物的母性行为功能障碍有关。雌激素受体-α在介导雌激素启动的这些神经效应中起着关键作用。这项初步研究检查了雌激素受体-α基因多态性与人类母性行为之间的关联。两种多态性与人类负面的母性行为有关。此外，功能磁共振成像中对与社会认知相关的神经区域中儿童刺激的血液动力学反应，完全介导了遗传变异与负面养育之间的关联。这表明存在关于遗传变异与人类母性行为功能障碍之间的生物学途径的可检验假设。
