Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore; Clinical Imaging Research Center, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, National University Health System, Singapore; Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, Singapore.
Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging. 2019 Nov;4(11):940-947. doi: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2019.05.006. Epub 2019 May 22.
Prenatal maternal depression may have long-term impacts on amygdala-cortical development. This study explored associations of prenatal maternal depressive symptoms on the amygdala-cortical structural covariance of the offspring from birth to early childhood, derived from a longitudinal birth cohort.
Structural magnetic resonance imaging was performed to obtain the amygdala volume and cortical thickness at each time point. Prenatal maternal depressive symptoms were measured using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale at 26 weeks of pregnancy. Regression analysis was used to examine the effects of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale on a structural coupling between the amygdala volume and cortical thickness at birth (n = 167) and 4.5 years of age (n = 199).
Girls whose mothers had high prenatal maternal depressive symptoms showed a positive coupling between the amygdala volume and insula thickness at birth (β = .617, p = .001) but showed a negative coupling between the amygdala volume and inferior frontal thickness at 4.5 years of age (β = -.369, p = .008). No findings were revealed in boys at any time point.
The development of the amygdala-prefrontal circuitry is vulnerable to environmental factors related to depression. Such a vulnerability might be sex dependent.
产前母亲的抑郁可能对杏仁核-皮质的发育有长期影响。本研究通过一项纵向出生队列，探索了从出生到幼儿期的产前母亲抑郁症状与后代杏仁核-皮质结构协变的关系。
使用结构磁共振成像在每个时间点获取杏仁核体积和皮质厚度。在妊娠 26 周时使用爱丁堡产后抑郁量表测量产前母亲抑郁症状。回归分析用于检查爱丁堡产后抑郁量表对出生时（n=167）和 4.5 岁时（n=199）杏仁核体积与皮质厚度之间结构耦合的影响。
母亲有较高产前母亲抑郁症状的女孩在出生时表现出杏仁核体积与岛叶厚度之间的正耦合（β=.617，p=.001），但在 4.5 岁时表现出杏仁核体积与下额前皮质厚度之间的负耦合（β=-.369，p=.008）。在任何时间点都没有发现男孩有这种现象。
杏仁核-前额叶回路的发育容易受到与抑郁相关的环境因素的影响。这种脆弱性可能是性别依赖的。
