Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-22-2023
Abstract
Background
Fetal exposure to maternal mood dysregulation influences child cognitive and emotional development, which may have long-lasting implications for mental health. However, the neurobiological alterations associated with this dimension of adversity have yet to be explored. Here, we tested the hypothesis that fetal exposure to entropy, a novel index of dysregulated maternal mood, would predict the integrity of the salience network, which is involved in emotional processing.Methods
A sample of 138 child-mother pairs (70 females) participated in this prospective longitudinal study. Maternal negative mood level and entropy (an index of variable and unpredictable mood) were assessed 5 times during pregnancy. Adolescents engaged in a functional magnetic resonance imaging task that was acquired between 2 resting-state scans. Changes in network integrity were analyzed using mixed-effect and latent growth curve models. The amplitude of low frequency fluctuations was analyzed to corroborate findings.Results
Prenatal maternal mood entropy, but not mood level, was associated with salience network integrity. Both prenatal negative mood level and entropy were associated with the amplitude of low frequency fluctuations of the salience network. Latent class analysis yielded 2 profiles based on changes in network integrity across all functional magnetic resonance imaging sequences. The profile that exhibited little variation in network connectivity (i.e., inflexibility) consisted of adolescents who were exposed to higher negative maternal mood levels and more entropy.Conclusions
These findings suggest that fetal exposure to maternal mood dysregulation is associated with a weakened and inflexible salience network. More broadly, they identify maternal mood entropy as a novel marker of early adversity that exhibits long-lasting associations with offspring brain development.Recommended Citation
Jirsaraie RJ, Palma AM, Small SL, et al. Prenatal Exposure to Maternal Mood Entropy Is Associated With a Weakened and Inflexible Salience Network in Adolescence. Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging. 2024;9(2):207-216. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2023.08.002
Copyright
Elsevier
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Included in
Child Psychology Commons, Developmental Psychology Commons, Maternal and Child Health Commons, Other Mental and Social Health Commons, Other Psychology Commons, Psychiatric and Mental Health Commons
Comments
NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, volume 9, issue 2, in 2024.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2023.08.002
The Creative Commons license below applies only to this version of the article.