Educational Neuroimaging Center, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Education in Science and Technology, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
Division of General and Community Pediatrics, Reading and Literacy Discovery Center, Cincinnati Children's Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
Depress Anxiety. 2021 Aug;38(8):826-835. doi: 10.1002/da.23168. Epub 2021 May 19.
Maternal depression is characterized by a lack of emotional responsiveness and engagement with their child, which may lead to the child's decreased cognitive, and language outcomes all related to the child's future reading outcomes. The relations between maternal depression and functional connectivity in neural circuits supporting language in the child was explored.
Eleven 4-year-old girls completed language abilities assessment and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Their mothers completed the Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI) to examine maternal depression when the child was 12 months old and at the age of 4. Functional connections within the child's resting-state phonology, semantics, language networks were correlated with maternal BDI scores at the age of 4 years.
Higher maternal depression was associated with the child's decreased within the semantic and phonological networks connectivity during rest. Higher maternal depression at 4 years moderated the relationship between early depression scores and functional connectivity within the phonological network.
Maternal depression in the first year of life is related to functional connections of phonological processing and enhanced by current maternal depression levels. We conclude that after a mother gives birth, resources should be provided to minimize depressive symptoms and interventions should be applied to support their child's language development for future reading acquisition.
母亲抑郁的特征是缺乏对孩子的情感反应和投入，这可能导致孩子的认知和语言能力下降，而这些都与孩子未来的阅读能力有关。本研究旨在探索母亲抑郁与支持儿童语言的神经回路中的功能连接之间的关系。
11 名 4 岁女孩完成了语言能力评估和静息态功能磁共振成像扫描。在孩子 12 个月和 4 岁时，她们的母亲完成贝克抑郁量表（BDI）以评估母亲的抑郁情况。在孩子静息状态下的语音、语义、语言网络内的功能连接与母亲在 4 岁时的 BDI 评分相关。
较高的母亲抑郁与孩子在休息时语义和语音网络内的功能连接下降有关。4 岁时较高的母亲抑郁程度会调节早期抑郁评分与语音网络内功能连接之间的关系。
生命第一年的母亲抑郁与语音处理的功能连接有关，并受到当前母亲抑郁程度的影响。我们的结论是，母亲分娩后，应提供资源来尽量减少抑郁症状，并应用干预措施来支持孩子的语言发展，以促进未来的阅读能力。
