Kim Pilyoung, Capistrano Christian G, Erhart Andrew, Gray-Schiff Rachel, Xu Nanxi
Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, CO, United States.
Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, CO, United States.
Behav Brain Res. 2017 May 15;325(Pt B):188-196. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2017.02.001. Epub 2017 Feb 2.
During the early postpartum period, mothers exhibit increased amygdala responses to positive infant expressions, which are important for positive mother-infant relationships. Socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with altered amygdala response to emotional stimuli as well as more negative mother-infant relationships. However, little is known about the role of socioeconomic disadvantage in neural responses specifically to infants. Thus, we examined whether socioeconomic disadvantage (indexed by lower income-to-needs ratio) is associated with neural responses to infant emotions and parenting behaviors among new mothers. Using fMRI, neural responses to infants' emotional expressions (positive, negative, and neutral faces) were assessed among 39 low- and middle-income first-time mothers during 0-6 postpartum months. Lower income-to-needs ratio was associated with dampened amygdala responses to positive infant faces, but increased amygdala responses to negative infant faces. An indirect effect of socioeconomic disadvantage on emotional availability via amygdala activation suggests that socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with heightened neural sensitivity to infants' negative emotions, which is further associated with mothers' intrusiveness observed during interactions with their own infant. The findings suggest that low-income mothers may be more vulnerable to altered neural processing of infants' emotional expressions which may further influence mothers' emotional availability during interactions with their own infants.
在产后早期，母亲对婴儿积极表情的杏仁核反应增强，这对积极的母婴关系很重要。社会经济劣势与杏仁核对情绪刺激的反应改变以及更消极的母婴关系有关。然而，关于社会经济劣势在对婴儿的神经反应中的作用却知之甚少。因此，我们研究了社会经济劣势（以较低的收入需求比为指标）是否与初为人母者对婴儿情绪和养育行为的神经反应有关。利用功能磁共振成像（fMRI），在产后0至6个月期间，对39名低收入和中等收入的初产妇对婴儿情绪表达（积极、消极和中性面孔）的神经反应进行了评估。较低的收入需求比与杏仁核对婴儿积极面孔的反应减弱有关，但与杏仁核对婴儿消极面孔的反应增强有关。社会经济劣势通过杏仁核激活对情感可及性产生的间接影响表明，社会经济劣势与对婴儿负面情绪的神经敏感性增强有关，这进一步与母亲在与自己婴儿互动时的侵扰行为有关。研究结果表明，低收入母亲可能更容易受到婴儿情绪表达神经处理改变的影响，这可能会进一步影响母亲与自己婴儿互动时的情感可及性。
