Department of Psychology, McGill University, 2001 McGill College Avenue, Montreal, QC, H3A 1G1, Canada.
Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, 230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN, 37203, USA.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2022 Dec;22(6):1370-1389. doi: 10.3758/s13415-022-01022-y. Epub 2022 Jul 8.
Affective exchanges between mothers and infants are key to the intergenerational transmission of depression and anxiety, possibly via adaptations in neural systems that support infants' attention to facial affect. The current study examined associations between postnatal maternal symptoms of depression, panic and social anxiety, maternal parenting behaviours, and infants' neural responses to emotional facial expressions portrayed by their mother and by female strangers. The Negative Central (Nc), an event-related potential component that indexes attention to salient stimuli and is sensitive to emotional expression, was recorded from 30 infants. Maternal sensitivity, intrusiveness, and warmth, as well as infant's positive engagement with their mothers, were coded from unstructured interactions. Mothers reporting higher levels of postnatal depression symptoms were rated by coders as less sensitive and warm, and their infants exhibited decreased positive engagement with the mothers. In contrast, postnatal maternal symptoms of panic and social anxiety were not significantly associated with experimenter-rated parenting behaviours. Additionally, infants of mothers reporting greater postnatal depression symptoms showed a smaller Nc to their own mother's facial expressions, whereas infants of mothers endorsing greater postnatal symptoms of panic demonstrated a larger Nc to fearful facial expressions posed by both their mother and female strangers. Together, these results suggest that maternal symptoms of depression and anxiety during the postpartum period have distinct effects on infants' neural responses to parent and stranger displays of emotion.
母婴之间的情感交流是抑郁和焦虑代际传递的关键，可能通过支持婴儿注意面部情绪的神经适应来实现。本研究考察了产后母亲抑郁、惊恐和社交焦虑症状、母亲养育行为与婴儿对母亲和女性陌生人情绪面部表情的神经反应之间的关联。负中央（Nc）是一种与注意显著刺激有关的事件相关电位成分，对情绪表达敏感，从 30 名婴儿中记录下来。从非结构化互动中对母亲的敏感性、侵入性和温暖以及婴儿与母亲的积极互动进行编码。报告产后抑郁症状水平较高的母亲被编码员评定为不敏感和不温暖，其婴儿与母亲的积极互动减少。相比之下，产后母亲的惊恐和社交焦虑症状与实验者评定的养育行为没有显著关联。此外，报告产后抑郁症状较多的母亲的婴儿对自己母亲面部表情的 Nc 较小，而报告产后惊恐症状较多的母亲的婴儿对母亲和女性陌生人呈现的恐惧面部表情的 Nc 较大。总的来说，这些结果表明，产后母亲的抑郁和焦虑症状对婴儿对父母和陌生人情绪表现的神经反应有不同的影响。
