Maternal Childhood Maltreatment Is Associated With Lower Infant Gray Matter Volume and Amygdala Volume During the First Two Years of Life

Khoury, Jennifer E.; Ahtam, Banu; Sisitsky, Michaela; Ou, Yangming; Gagoski, Borjan; Enlow, Michelle Bosquet; Teicher, Martin H.; Grant, P. Ellen; Lyons‐Ruth, Karlen

doi:10.1016/j.bpsgos.2021.09.005

Cited by 12 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Similar associations were not observed for the right amygdala. These results add to the results of three previous studies linking maternal CME with amygdala volumes, although the studies have mixed findings (Demers et al (2022), Moog et al (2018), Khoury et al (2021). To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the associations between infant amygdala volume and paternal CME.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

“…Demers et al ( 2022) with bilateral amygdala and Khoury et al (2021) in a sample of 4-24month-old infants they found a negative association between maternal CME and infant amygdala volume, and the effect was stronger in infants at the older end of the age range, which implies that the associations in early infancy can lead to altered developmental trajectories or that the postnatal environment is contributing to the effect. Moog et al (2018) did not find any associations.…”

Section: Contradictory Findings Among Studies Addressing Parental Ear...mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…To the best of our knowledge, only three previous studies have investigated the associations between maternal CMEs and infant amygdala volumes. Demers et al (2022) reported a negative association between maternal CMEs and infant bilateral amygdala volumes, and Khoury et al (2021) showed that the effect between maternal CMEs and right amygdala volume became stronger with increasing age (from 4 to 24 months of age). Moog et al (2018), on the contrary, did not find any associations between maternal CMEs and infant amygdalae when controlling for pre- and postnatal maternal distress.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…CME has well established adverse effect on later mental health but some of its effects may also be transmitted to offspring through maternal physiology during pregnancy (Moog et al 2018). Intriguing findings point out that CME could be a contributor to fetal brain development (Demers et al 2022;Khoury et al 2021;Moog et al 2018) by programming the maternal physiology (van den Heuvel 2021; Moog et al 2022). Recent evidence also suggests that paternal CME influences prenatal brain development (Karlsson et al 2020), potentially via epigenetic changes in the paternal germ line (Ghai and Kader 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Parental childhood maltreatment associates with offspring left amygdala volume at early infancy

Tuulari

Pulli

Kataja

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Background: Childhood maltreatment exposure (CME) and related trauma could be considered some of psychiatry's greatest public health challenges. CME and early adversity have been associated with increased amygdala volume in exposed individuals. Emerging evidence implies that CME could also affect prenatal development of the offspring. Methods: As part of the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study, we measured bilateral amygdala volumes from MR images in 76 healthy infants at 2 to 5 weeks of gestation corrected age and obtained the Trauma and Distress Scale (TADS) questionnaire from both parents. The associations between neonatal amygdala volumes and TADS scores were examined in stepwise regression models. Results: We found that maternal CME associated positively with infant left amygdala volume (p = .045) while the positive association for the paternal trauma score was only marginally significant (p = .099). Similar associations were not observed for the right amygdala. In the exploratory analyses, we used age ranges (0 to 6, 7 to 12, and 13 to 18 years) as estimate of the timing of the CME and included all three time points from both parents using left amygdala volume into the stepwise regression models. We found that maternal TADS scores from 13 to 18 years of age associated positively with infant left amygdala volumes (p = .008). Correspondingly, paternal TADS scores from 0 to 6 years of age associated positively with the infant left amygdala volumes (p = .014). Conclusions: Our link the infant offspring amygdala volume with parental CME with some agreement with prior findings, and they also imply links paternal CME to infant amygdala volumes. Amygdala is one of the key brain structures associated with both early life exposures and later psychiatric health, which makes it crucially important to elucidate both the underlying mechanisms and the later relevance of these associations in future studies.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Contradictory Findings Among Studies Addressing Parental Ear...mentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Parental childhood maltreatment associates with offspring left amygdala volume at early infancy

Tuulari

Pulli

Kataja

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although the link between prenatal maternal sleep and amygdala development is unknown, our findings suggest that prenatal sleep health may not be associated with newborn amygdala volume, it is plausible that as the amygdala continues to develop in the postnatal period, links with prenatal sleep will emerge. Consistent with this possibility, prior work has shown that associations with maternal childhood maltreatment and offspring amygdala volume emerge later in infancy ( Khoury et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Longitudinal and prospective assessment of prenatal maternal sleep quality and associations with newborn hippocampal and amygdala volume

Nevarez-Brewster

Demers

Mejia

et al. 2022

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

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Negative versus withdrawn maternal behavior: Differential associations with infant gray and white matter during the first 2 years of life

Lyons‐Ruth

Ahtam

et al. 2023

Human Brain Mapping

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Maternal Childhood Maltreatment Is Associated With Lower Infant Gray Matter Volume and Amygdala Volume During the First Two Years of Life

Cited by 12 publications

References 66 publications

Parental childhood maltreatment associates with offspring left amygdala volume at early infancy

Parental childhood maltreatment associates with offspring left amygdala volume at early infancy

Longitudinal and prospective assessment of prenatal maternal sleep quality and associations with newborn hippocampal and amygdala volume

Negative versus withdrawn maternal behavior: Differential associations with infant gray and white matter during the first 2 years of life

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