The Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability and Neurodevelopment Project: Theory and Methodology

OʼDonnell, Katherine A.; Gaudreau, Hélène; Colalillo, Sara; Steiner, Meir; Atkinson, Leslie; Moss, Ellen; Goldberg, Susan; Karama, Sherif; Matthews, Stephen G.; Lydon, John; Silveira, Patrícia Pelufo; Wazana, Ashley; Levitan, Robert D.; Sokolowski, Marla B.; Kennedy, James L.; Fleming, Alison S.; Meaney, Michael J.

doi:10.1177/070674371405900906

Cited by 80 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 123 publications

(79 reference statements)

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“…After delivery, mothers were followed up at regular time intervals until the child reached 12 years, through both home and laboratory visits. The study design and a detailed description of the MAVAN study protocol is provided in Figure . For the present study, we examined a variety of indicators of maternal parenting across multiple time points from 6 to 60 months postpartum.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dissecting maternal care: Patterns of maternal parenting in a prospective cohort study

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Bouvette‐Turcot

et al. 2019

J Neuroendocrinology

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Parental care has a strong impact on neurodevelopment and mental health in the offspring. Although numerous animal studies have revealed that the parental brain is a highly complex system involving many brain structures and neuroendocrine systems, human maternal parenting as a multidimensional construct with cognitive, emotional, and behavioural components has not been characterised comprehensively. This unique multi‐method analysis aimed to examine patterns of self‐reported and observed parenting from 6 to 60 months postpartum in a cohort of 496 mothers (mean maternal age = 32 years). Self‐report questionnaires assessed motivational components of mothering, parenting stress, parenting‐related mood, maternal investment, maternal parenting style, mother‐child relationship satisfaction, and mother‐child bonding at multiple time points. Observed parenting variables included the Ainsworth Sensitivity Scales at 6 and 18 months, the Behavioral Evaluation Strategies Taxonomies at 6 months, an Etch‐A‐Sketch cooperation task at 48 months, and the Parent‐Child Early Relationship Assessment at 60 months. To examine whether different latent constructs underlie these measures of maternal parenting, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis. Self‐report measures of parenting correlated only weakly with behavioural observations. Factor analysis on a subsample (n = 197) revealed four latent factors that each explained from 7% to 11% of the variance in the data (32% total variance explained). Based on the loadings of the instruments, the factors were interpreted as: Supportive Parenting, Self‐Enjoyment Parenting, Overwhelmed Parenting, and Affectionate Parenting. These factor scores showed specific associations with maternal education and depressive symptoms, as well as with child outcomes, including maternally reported internalising and externalising behavioural problems, school readiness, and child‐reported symptoms of mental health. These findings parallel the complexity of the parental brain, suggesting that maternal parenting consists of multiple components, each of which is associated with different maternal characteristics and child outcomes.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dissecting maternal care: Patterns of maternal parenting in a prospective cohort study

Unternäehrer

Cost

Bouvette‐Turcot

et al. 2019

J Neuroendocrinology

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“…Overall, GESU has an interrater reliability ranging from .65 to .97 across the 16 scales (n = 20). The internal consistency of the scales using Cronbach's alpha is .88 (n = 168) and it has a good correlation with other measures of mother-infant relationship (O'Donnell et al, 2014). The mother's teaching and control strategies are rated, as well as the child's persistence and interest in the task and the overall atmosphere and attunement between mother and child.…”

Section: Taskmentioning

confidence: 99%

Better quality of mother–child interaction at 4 years of age decreases emotional overeating in IUGR girls

et al. 2014

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“…Variations in parental environment during development can affect adult phenotype in profound ways (Heim et al, 2002; Repetti et al, 2002; O’Donnell et al, 2014; Samek et al, 2015). In humans, for example, childhood family environments characterized by high conflict and low quality attachments are associated with vulnerability to social and emotional processing deficits (Repetti et al, 2002) as well as an increase in the risk for developing psychopathology in adulthood (Bifulco et al, 1991; Brown and Anderson, 1991; Felitti et al, 1998; Heim et al, 2002; Yam et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, increased maternal responsiveness is associated with an increase in infant development including social, emotional, and cognitive competence (Landry et al, 2006). Therefore, early parental environment predicts susceptibility and resiliency to adult psychopathology (Smith and Prior, 1995; O’Donnell et al, 2014). Studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have elucidated some of the brain regions, including the hippocampus as well as the cingulate and prefrontal cortices, that are affected by early childhood adversity (Brooks et al, 2014; Elton et al, 2014; Sripada et al, 2014; Jensen et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paternal deprivation affects social behaviors and neurochemical systems in the offspring of socially monogamous prairie voles

et al. 2017

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Early life experiences, particularly the experience with parents, are crucial to phenotypic outcomes in both humans and animals. Although the effects of maternal deprivation on offspring well-being have been studied, paternal deprivation (PD) has received little attention despite documented associations between father absence and children health problems in humans. In the present study, we utilized the socially monogamous prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster), which displays male-female pair bonding and bi-parental care, to examine the effects of PD on adult behaviors and neurochemical expression in the hippocampus. Male and female subjects were randomly assigned into one of two experimental groups that grew up with both the mother and father (MF) or with the mother-only (MO, to generate PD experience). Our data show that MO subjects received less parental licking/grooming and carrying and were left alone in the nest more frequently than MF subjects. At adulthood (~75 days of age), MO subjects displayed increased social affiliation towards a conspecific compared to MF subjects, but the two groups did not differ in social recognition and anxiety-like behavior. Interestingly, MO subjects showed consistent increases in both gene and protein expression of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and tropomyosin receptor kinase B (TrkB) as well as the levels of total histone 3 and histone 3 acetylation in the hippocampus compared to MF subjects. Further, PD experience increased glucocorticoid receptor beta (GRβ) protein expression in the hippocampus of females as well as increased corticotrophin receptor 2 (CRHR2) protein expression in the hippocampus of males, but decreased CRHR2 mRNA in both sexes. Together, our data suggest that PD has a longlasting, behavior-specific effect on social affiliation and alters hippocampal neurochemical systems in the vole brain. The functional role of such altered neurochemical systems in social behaviors and the potential involvement of epigenetic events should be further studied.

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The Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability and Neurodevelopment Project: Theory and Methodology

Cited by 80 publications

References 123 publications

Dissecting maternal care: Patterns of maternal parenting in a prospective cohort study

Dissecting maternal care: Patterns of maternal parenting in a prospective cohort study

Better quality of mother–child interaction at 4 years of age decreases emotional overeating in IUGR girls

Paternal deprivation affects social behaviors and neurochemical systems in the offspring of socially monogamous prairie voles

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