Qiu A, Anh T T, Li Y, Chen H, Rifkin-Graboi A, Broekman B F P, Kwek K, Saw S-M, Chong Y-S, Gluckman P D, Fortier M V, Meaney M J
1] Department of Biomedical Engineering and Clinical Imaging Research Center, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore [2] Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, Singapore, Singapore.
Department of Biomedical Engineering and Clinical Imaging Research Center, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
Transl Psychiatry. 2015 Feb 17;5(2):e508. doi: 10.1038/tp.2015.3.
Prenatal maternal depression is associated with alterations in the neonatal amygdala microstructure, shedding light on the timing for the influence of prenatal maternal depression on the brain structure of the offspring. This study aimed to examine the association between prenatal maternal depressive symptomatology and infant amygdala functional connectivity and to thus establish the neural functional basis for the transgenerational transmission of vulnerability for affective disorders during prenatal development. Twenty-four infants were included in this study with both structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) at 6 months of age. Maternal depression was assessed at 26 weeks of gestation and 3 months after delivery using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Linear regression was used to identify the amygdala functional networks and to examine the associations between prenatal maternal depressive symptoms and amygdala functional connectivity. Our results showed that at 6 months of age, the amygdala is functionally connected to widespread brain regions, forming the emotional regulation, sensory and perceptual, and emotional memory networks. After controlling for postnatal maternal depressive symptoms, infants born to mothers with higher prenatal maternal depressive symptoms showed greater functional connectivity of the amygdala with the left temporal cortex and insula, as well as the bilateral anterior cingulate, medial orbitofrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cortices, which are largely consistent with patterns of connectivity observed in adolescents and adults with major depressive disorder. Our study provides novel evidence that prenatal maternal depressive symptomatology alters the amygdala's functional connectivity in early postnatal life, which reveals that the neuroimaging correlates of the familial transmission of phenotypes associated with maternal mood are apparent in infants at 6 months of age.
产前母亲抑郁与新生儿杏仁核微观结构改变有关，这为产前母亲抑郁对后代脑结构影响的时间提供了线索。本研究旨在探讨产前母亲抑郁症状与婴儿杏仁核功能连接之间的关联，从而为产前发育期间情感障碍易感性的跨代传递建立神经功能基础。本研究纳入了24名婴儿，在其6个月大时进行了结构磁共振成像（MRI）和静息态功能MRI（fMRI）检查。使用爱丁堡产后抑郁量表在妊娠26周和产后3个月评估母亲的抑郁情况。采用线性回归来识别杏仁核功能网络，并检验产前母亲抑郁症状与杏仁核功能连接之间的关联。我们的结果显示，在6个月大时，杏仁核与广泛的脑区存在功能连接，形成了情绪调节、感觉和知觉以及情绪记忆网络。在控制了产后母亲抑郁症状后，产前母亲抑郁症状较高的母亲所生的婴儿，其杏仁核与左侧颞叶皮质和脑岛以及双侧前扣带回、内侧眶额皮质和腹内侧前额叶皮质的功能连接更强，这与在患有重度抑郁症的青少年和成年人中观察到的连接模式基本一致。我们的研究提供了新的证据，表明产前母亲抑郁症状在产后早期会改变杏仁核的功能连接，这揭示了与母亲情绪相关的表型家族传递的神经影像学关联在6个月大的婴儿中就很明显。
