Division of Behavioral Genetics, Department of Psychiatry, Rhode Island Hospital.
Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Purdue University.
Dev Psychol. 2018 Feb;54(2):199-208. doi: 10.1037/dev0000423. Epub 2017 Oct 23.
Maternal smoking during pregnancy (SDP) has been linked to poorer offspring executive function across development, but SDP does not occur independent of other familial risk factors. As such, poor and inconsistent control for potential confounds, notably shared familial (i.e., genetic and environmental) confounds, preclude concluding causal effects of SDP on child outcomes. We examined the within-family association between SDP and one component of executive function, inhibitory control, in a sample of families (N = 173) specifically selected for sibling pairs discordant for exposure to SDP. Thus, the present study examines if the SDP-inhibitory control association withstands rigorous control for potential child and familial confounds. 79% of the variation in child inhibitory control was attributable to within-family differences and 21% was attributable to differences between families, indicating that the variability in inhibitory control was primarily a function of differences between siblings rather than differences across families. Further, the association between SDP and inhibitory control was fully attenuated when confounds were considered. These findings suggest that co-occurring vulnerabilities act as more salient risk factors for poorer child inhibitory control than SDP and may serve as effective targets of interventions seeking to improve children's inhibitory control in families with nicotine dependent mothers. (PsycINFO Database Record
母亲在怀孕期间吸烟（SDP）与后代执行功能较差有关，但 SDP 的发生并非独立于其他家庭风险因素。因此，对于潜在的混杂因素，特别是共同的家庭（即遗传和环境）混杂因素，控制效果不佳且不一致，从而无法得出 SDP 对儿童结局的因果影响。我们在一个特别选择的具有 SDP 暴露不一致的兄弟姐妹的家庭样本（N = 173）中，检查了 SDP 与执行功能的一个组成部分，即抑制控制之间的家庭内关联。因此，本研究检验了在严格控制潜在儿童和家庭混杂因素的情况下，SDP-抑制控制关联是否成立。儿童抑制控制的 79%变异归因于家庭内差异，21%归因于家庭间差异，表明抑制控制的可变性主要是兄弟姐妹之间差异的函数，而不是家庭间差异的函数。此外，当考虑混杂因素时，SDP 与抑制控制之间的关联完全减弱。这些发现表明，共同的脆弱性是导致儿童抑制控制较差的更显著风险因素，而不是 SDP，并且可能成为旨在改善具有尼古丁依赖母亲的家庭中儿童抑制控制的干预措施的有效目标。
