Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, USA.
Neuropsychopharmacology. 2024 Jan;49(2):476-485. doi: 10.1038/s41386-023-01765-3. Epub 2023 Nov 15.
The experience of ethnic, racial, and structural inequalities is increasingly recognized as detrimental to health, and early studies suggest that its experience in pregnant mothers may affect the developing fetus. We characterized discrimination and acculturation experiences in a predominantly Hispanic sample of pregnant adolescent women and assessed their association with functional connectivity in their neonate's brain. We collected self-report measures of acculturation, discrimination, maternal distress (i.e., perceived stress, childhood trauma, and depressive symptoms), and socioeconomic status in 165 women. Then, we performed a data-driven clustering of acculturation, discrimination, perceived stress, depressive symptoms, trauma, and socioeconomic status variables during pregnancy to determine whether discrimination or acculturation clustered into distinct factors. Discrimination and acculturation styles loaded onto different factors from perceived stress, depressive symptoms, trauma, and socioeconomic status, suggesting that they were distinct from other factors in our sample. We associated these data-driven maternal phenotypes (discrimination and acculturation styles) with measures of resting-state functional MRI connectivity of the infant amygdala (n = 38). Higher maternal report of assimilation was associated with weaker connectivity between their neonate's amygdala and bilateral fusiform gyrus. Maternal experience of discrimination was associated with weaker connectivity between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex and stronger connectivity between the amygdala and fusiform of their neonate. Cautiously, the results may suggest a similarity to self-contained studies with adults, noting that the experience of discrimination and acculturation may influence amygdala circuitry across generations. Further prospective studies are essential that consider a more diverse population of minoritized individuals and with a comprehensive assessment of ethnic, racial, and structural factors.
种族、民族和结构性不平等的经历日益被认为对健康有害，早期研究表明，孕妇的这种经历可能会影响发育中的胎儿。我们对主要是西班牙裔的孕妇青少年进行了歧视和文化适应经历的描述，并评估了它们与新生儿大脑功能连接的关系。我们收集了 165 名女性在怀孕期间的文化适应、歧视、母亲压力（即感知压力、童年创伤和抑郁症状）和社会经济地位的自我报告测量值。然后，我们对怀孕期间的文化适应、歧视、感知压力、抑郁症状、创伤和社会经济地位变量进行了数据驱动的聚类，以确定歧视或文化适应是否聚类为不同的因素。歧视和文化适应方式与感知压力、抑郁症状、创伤和社会经济地位的因素不同，这表明它们与我们样本中的其他因素不同。我们将这些数据驱动的母体表型（歧视和文化适应方式）与婴儿杏仁核的静息状态功能磁共振成像连接的测量值相关联（n=38）。母亲报告的同化程度越高，其新生儿的杏仁核与其双侧梭状回之间的连接就越弱。母亲经历的歧视与杏仁核与前额叶皮层之间的连接减弱以及杏仁核与新生儿的梭状回之间的连接增强有关。谨慎地说，这些结果可能与对成年人进行的独立研究相似，即歧视和文化适应的经历可能会影响跨代的杏仁核回路。进一步的前瞻性研究至关重要，这些研究应考虑到少数族裔个体的更多样化人群，并对种族、民族和结构性因素进行全面评估。
