Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Texas A&M University, USA.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Texas A&M University, USA.
Infant Behav Dev. 2023 Feb;70:101802. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2022.101802. Epub 2022 Dec 10.
Despite widespread acceptance that prenatal symptoms of depression in mothers are detrimental to infants' long-term emotional and cognitive development, little is known about the mechanisms that may integrate outcomes across these domains. Rooted in the integrative perspective that emotional development is grounded in developing cognitive processes, we hypothesized that prenatal symptoms of depression in mothers would be associated with delays in neural maturation that support sociocognitive function in infants, leading to more problematic behaviors. We used a prospective longitudinal study of mothers (N = 92) and their infants to test whether self-reported symptoms of depression in mothers during the second and third trimesters were associated with neural development and infant outcomes at 4 months of age. While controlling for postpartum symptoms of depression, more prenatal symptoms of depression in mothers predicted less neural maturation in the parietal region of 4-month-old infants. Less neural maturation, in turn, was associated with greater infant negativity, suggesting neural maturation as a putative mechanism linking maternal symptoms of depression with infant outcomes. Differences in neural regions and developmental timing are also discussed.
尽管普遍认为母亲产前抑郁症状会对婴儿的长期情绪和认知发展产生不利影响，但对于可能整合这些领域结果的机制知之甚少。我们基于这样一种综合观点，即情绪发展是以发展中的认知过程为基础的，因此假设母亲产前抑郁症状与支持婴儿社会认知功能的神经成熟延迟有关，从而导致更多的行为问题。我们使用了一项对母亲（N=92）及其婴儿的前瞻性纵向研究，以测试母亲在妊娠第二和第三个三个月期间自我报告的抑郁症状是否与 4 个月大婴儿的神经发育和婴儿结果有关。在控制产后抑郁症状的情况下，母亲产前抑郁症状越多，4 个月大婴儿的顶叶区域神经成熟程度越低。反过来，神经成熟程度较低与婴儿的消极情绪程度较高有关，这表明神经成熟是将母亲的抑郁症状与婴儿的结果联系起来的一个潜在机制。我们还讨论了神经区域和发育时间的差异。
