The prenatal period represents a critical time for brain growth and development. These rapid neurological advances render the fetus susceptible to various influences with life-long implications for mental health. Maternal distress signals are a dominant early life influence, contributing to birth outcomes and risk for offspring psychopathology. This prospective longitudinal study evaluated the association between prenatal maternal distress and infant white matter microstructure. Participants included a racially and socioeconomically diverse sample of 85 mother–infant dyads. Prenatal distress was assessed at 17 and 29 weeks’ gestational age (GA). Infant structural data were collected via diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) at 42–45 weeks’ postconceptional age. Findings demonstrated that higher prenatal maternal distress at 29 weeks’ GA was associated with increased fractional anisotropy, b = .283, t(64) = 2.319, p = .024, and with increased axial diffusivity, b = .254, t(64) = 2.067, p = .043, within the right anterior cingulate white matter tract. No other significant associations were found with prenatal distress exposure and tract fractional anisotropy or axial diffusivity at 29 weeks’ GA, or earlier in gestation.
There is increasing concern about the potential effects of anesthesia exposure on the developing brain. The effects of relatively brief anesthesia exposures used repeatedly to acquire serial magnetic resonance imaging scans could be examined prospectively in rhesus macaques. We analyzed magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of 32 rhesus macaques (14 females, 18 males) aged 2 weeks to 36 months to assess postnatal white matter (WM) maturation. We investigated the longitudinal relationships between each DTI property and anesthesia exposure, taking age, sex, and weight of the monkeys into consideration. Quantification of anesthesia exposure was normalized to account for variation in exposures. Segmented linear regression with two knots provided the best model for quantifying WM DTI properties across brain development as well as the summative effect of anesthesia exposure. The resulting model revealed statistically significant age and anesthesia effects in most WM tracts. Our analysis indicated there were major effects on WM associated with low levels of anesthesia even when repeated as few as three times. Fractional anisotropy values were reduced across several WM tracts in the brain, indicating that anesthesia exposure may delay WM maturation, and highlight the potential clinical concerns with even a few exposures in young children.
Introduction Poor prenatal sleep health is a pervasive reproductive health concern that informs the health of the mother and fetal development. Despite the almost ubiquitous nature of sleep disturbances across pregnancy, sleep health within pregnant populations, and its effects on the next generation, remain poorly studied. We recently showed that prenatal maternal sleep quality predicts newborn hippocampal volume. However, the relation between prenatal sleep quality and neonatal neural circuit development remains unknown. Changes in neonatal white matter microstructure presage compromised socioemotional and cognitive health, including the development of psychopathology and neurocognitive disorders, making it a plausible neurobiological pathway linking prenatal maternal sleep and offspring socioemotional health. This study first examined the relations between trajectories of prenatal maternal sleep quality and subsequent neonatal white matter integrity. We next evaluated whether neonatal white matter integrity partially mediates associations between prenatal sleep and infant negative emotionality. Methods Pregnant participants (n = 116) provided prospective and longitudinal data of prenatal maternal sleep quality at 16, 29, and 35 gestational weeks using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Neonatal (53% female) white matter integrity was assessed via diffusion weighed images using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Infant negative emotionality was collected at 6 postpartum months using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire. Results Trajectories of prenatal maternal sleep quality predicted higher bilateral neonatal fractional anisotropy (FA) in the uncinate fasciculus (e.g., right: b = 0.15, p = .023). Further, higher uncinate FA predicted more infant negative emotionality (e.g., right: b = 0.25, p = .011) and uncinate FA partially mediated the association between prenatal maternal sleep and infant negative emotionality (right: indirect effect = 0.014, CI = [.0001, .0323], p < .05). Associations remained after covarying for infant postconceptional age at MRI, motion in MRI scan, sex, and income-to-needs ratio. Conclusion These findings highlight prenatal maternal sleep health as a prenatal signal with intergenerational connections to offspring neurobiology and negative emotionality, both of which have been previously implicated in the development of psychopathology. Pregnancy is a sensitive period in which interventions may inform the health of two generations. Support (if any) NIMH R01MH109662, NHLBI R01HL155744, and diversity training supplement for 1st author; F32MH125572 for 2nd author.
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