Interactive relations between maternal prenatal stress, fetal brain connectivity, and gestational age at delivery
Year: 2021
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Studies reporting significant associations between maternal prenatal stress and child outcomes are frequently confounded by correlates of prenatal stress that influence the postnatal rearing environment. The major objective of this study is to identify whether maternal prenatal stress is associated with variation in human brain functional connectivity prior to birth. We utilized fetal fMRI in 118 fetuses [48 female; mean age 32.9 weeks ( SD = 3.87)] to evaluate this association and further addressed whether fetal neural differences were related to maternal health behaviors, social support, or birth outcomes. Community detection was used to empirically define networks and enrichment was used to isolate differential within- or between-network connectivity effects. Significance for χ 2 enrichment was determined by randomly permuting the subject pairing of fetal brain connectivity and maternal stress values 10,000 times. Mixtures modelling was used to test whether fetal neural differences were related to maternal health behaviors, social support, or birth outcomes. Increased maternal prenatal negative affect/stress was associated with alterations in fetal frontoparietal, striatal, and temporoparietal connectivity (β = 0.82, p < 0.001). Follow-up analysis demonstrated that these associations were stronger in women with better health behaviors, more positive interpersonal support, and lower overall stress (β = 0.16, p = 0.02). Additionally, magnitude of stress-related differences in neural connectivity was marginally correlated with younger gestational age at delivery (β = −0.18, p = 0.05). This is the first evidence that negative affect/stress during pregnancy is reflected in functional network differences in the human brain in utero, and also provides information about how positive interpersonal and health behaviors could mitigate prenatal brain programming.
Source: Neuropsychopharmacology
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $4,480
Awards: From the womb to the classroom: Linking perinatal micronutrients and toxicants to neural and behavioral development in utero and in childhood, Investigating neurobehavioral consequences of COVID-19 related stressors on maternal mental health and infant development, “Overlapping and Discrete Pathways Through Which Prenatal Isolation and Uncertainty Stress Impact Maternal Mental Health and Child Neurodevelopment, In Utero Assessment of the Human Neural Connectome and Later Child Behavior, 4:4 Investigation of opioid exposure and neurodevelopment (iOPEN), Examining Prenatal Inflammation and Neurodevelopment in a Longitudinal Fetal-to-Age 9 Imaging Study, 8/24 The Healthy Brain and Child Development National Consortium
OpenAlex ID: W3175866482