Maternal socialization, not biology, shapes child brain activity
Probing reward-related processing in children of depressed moms

Date:
March 23, 2022
Source:
Elsevier
Summary:
Children of mothers with clinical depression are at three times
greater risk to develop depression themselves than are their
low-risk peers.

Researchers are working to understand the neural underpinnings of
the risk, and some studies have shown altered brain processing of
reward in at-risk children as young as 6. An outstanding question
remains as to whether children with a maternal history of depression
have a biological predisposition to blunted neural reward responding
or whether it depends more on social factors. Now, new work finds
those dampened responses depended on maternal feedback, suggesting
the latter.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Children of mothers with clinical depression are at three times
greater risk to develop depression themselves than are their low-risk
peers. Researchers are working to understand the neural underpinnings of
the risk, and some studies have shown altered brain processing of reward
in at-risk children as young as 6. An outstanding question remains as to whether children with a maternal history of depression have a biological predisposition to blunted neural reward responding or whether it depends
more on social factors. Now, new work finds those dampened responses
depended on maternal feedback, suggesting the latter.


==========================================================================
The study appears in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier.

Researchers have long observed changes in brain activity associated
with depression in adults, particularly in a brain area called the
ventral striatum (VS), which is associated with motivation, pleasure,
and goal-directed behaviors. Similarly, several studies have shown
striatal responses to rewarding experiences are blunted in adolescent
children of depressed parents, which predicts later development of
depression. However, more recent work shows that these brain changes
can emerge long before the teenage years, when the risk for depression typically increases.

For the current study, lead author Judith Morgan, PhD, at the University
of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, recruited 49 children aged 6 to 8
without a history of psychiatric illness. Half the kids' mothers had a
history of clinical depression, and half had no psychiatric history. To
measure reward- related brain activity, children played a video game
in which they guessed which of two doors contained a hidden token while
they underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Depression may disrupt parents' capacity for emotional socialization,
a process by which kids learn from their parents' reactions to their
emotional responses.

Positive socialization responses include acknowledgment, imitation,
and elaboration, whereas negative or emotionally dampening parental
responses may be dismissive, invalidating, or punitive.

Mothers participating in the study completed an extensive questionnaire designed to measure parental emotional socialization by presenting a
dozen situational vignettes of children's displays of positive emotions
and collecting parents' reactions to them. Strikingly, children with
a maternal history of depression were more likely to have reduced reward-related brain activity in the VS, but only if their mothers
reported less enthusiastic and more dampening responses to their
children's positive emotions, the researchers found.

"In our study, mothers' own history of depression by itself was not
related to altered brain responses to reward in early school-age
children," said Dr.

Morgan. "Instead, this history had an influence on children's brain
responses only in combination with mothers' parenting behavior, such
as the ability to acknowledge, imitate, or elaborate on their child's
positive emotions." "This is hopeful news as interventions geared at
coaching parents to encourage positive emotions in their children may
have a powerful impact on child reward- related development, especially
for families of children who may be at greater risk because of a family
history of depression," Dr. Morgan added.

Cameron Carter, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive
Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, said, "This important work provides a
great example of how clinical neuroscience can reveal neural mechanisms underlying depression and discover new links that may explain why one
person has depression and another does not. These links take us beyond
clinical observation and therapy alone to open new avenues (such as
parenting interventions) for prevention that can promote resilience
and wellness."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Elsevier. Note: Content may be edited
for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Judith K. Morgan, Kristen L. Eckstrand, Jennifer S. Silk, Thomas M.

Olino, Cecile D. Ladouceur, Erika E. Forbes. Maternal Response
to Positive Affect Moderates the Impact of Familial Risk for
Depression on Ventral Striatal Response to Winning Reward in 6-
to 8-Year-Old Children.

Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging,
2022; DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2021.12.014 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220323101221.htm

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