Times are displayed in (UTC-05:00) Central Time (US & Canada) Change
About this paper symposium
| Panel information |
|---|
| Panel 14. Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships |
| Paper #1 | |
|---|---|
| Sex-specific implications of unpredictable prenatal maternal mood for adolescent anhedonia | |
| Author information | Role |
| Anna M. Zhou, Ph.D., University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, United States | Presenting author |
| Curt A. Sandman, University of California Irvine, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Tallie Z. Baram, University of California Irvine, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Hal S. Stern, University of California Irvine, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Laura M. Glynn, Chapman University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Elysia Poggi Davis, University of Denver, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
|
Exposure to unpredictability, a relatively understudied form of early life adversity has recently been identified as a risk factor for psychopathology including anxiety, depression and anhedonia (Davis & Glynn, 2024). Exposure to unpredictable maternal signals as early as pregnancy have been linked with adolescent depressive symptoms (Glynn et al., 2018). However, less work has examined links between fetal exposure to unpredictable maternal signals during pregnancy and anhedonia (reduced or absence of motivation and pleasure) later in life. Experimental animal models suggest that anhedonic behaviors may be particularly susceptible to early life exposure to unpredictability (Molet et al., 2016). Moreover, early exposure to maternal unpredictability has differential effects based on sex: early exposure to unpredictability caused elevated anhedonic behaviors in male rodents, but not females (Birnie et al., 2023). In contrast, early life unpredictability increased propensity for seeking of both natural and drug rewards (e.g., Levis et al., 2021). The sex-specific implications of early life unpredictability in humans remain poorly understood. We tested if associations between maternal mood unpredictability during pregnancy and adolescent self-reported anhedonia differed by sex. Specifically, we examined exposure to maternal unpredictability during the third trimester as a sensitive period. Based on experimental animal studies, we hypothesized that elevated unpredictability in prenatal maternal signals would portend higher anhedonia symptoms in boys, but not girls. Participants included 158 mothers and their children (50% female, 47% White, 65% non-Hispanic) who participated in a large longitudinal study. The median income-to-needs ratio was 4.52. During the third trimester, mothers self-reported their mood on four questionnaires assessing depressive symptoms, state anxiety, pregnancy-specific anxiety, and perceived stress. Mood entropy, an index of mood unpredictability, was computed by applying Shannon’s entropy to the distribution on the four mood questionnaires (Glynn et al., 2018). Higher entropy scores reflect more unpredictability. Adolescents (Mage=14.09, SD=1.44) self-reported anhedonia using the Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale (Snaith et al., 1995). A generalized linear model was implemented to examine associations between prenatal mood entropy, sex, and their interaction on adolescent anhedonia using, with income-to-needs ratios and child age as covariates. A negative binomial distribution was used to model anhedonia scores to address overdispersion. Higher prenatal mood entropy was significantly associated with elevated anhedonia (b=0.02, SE=0.01, p=.005). While anhedonia symptoms did not differ by sex (b=0.94, SE=0.65, p=.147), there was a significant interaction between prenatal mood entropy and sex (b=-0.02, SE=0.01, p=.040): higher prenatal mood entropy was associated with elevated anhedonia symptoms for boys (b=0.02, SE=.01, p=.005) but not girls (b=-0.00, SE=0.01, p=.801). Figure 1 depicts the interaction. Highly consistent with experimental animal models, maternal unpredictability in early life predicted anhedonia among males, but not females. Our findings suggest that exposure to prenatal maternal unpredictability may influence reward circuitry in humans. The present study adds to a body of cross-species work on sex differences in associations between maternal unpredictability and anhedonia, furthering our understanding of how exposure to early life adversity may differentially confer risk for anhedonia and depression for men and women. |
|
| Paper #2 | |
|---|---|
| Maternal Unpredictability in the Context of Prenatal Substance Exposure: Implications for Infant Negative Affect | |
| Author information | Role |
| Madison Rachel Kelm, The Pennsylvania State University, United States | Presenting author |
| Rina D. Eiden, The Pennsylvania State University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
|
Unpredictability in the early environment may serve as a cue about the quality of the future environment, prompting alterations in infant psychosocial development. Both prenatal and postnatal maternal mood unpredictability and unpredictability in maternal sensory signals during play interactions with infants may impact salient outcomes such as infant negative affect. Importantly, few studies have examined both mood unpredictability and unpredictability in sensory signals together, particularly in the context of other risk factors such as prenatal tobacco-cannabis exposure, a consistent predictor of infant negative affect. We hypothesized that maternal mood unpredictability during pregnancy and early infancy and unpredictability in sensory signals during late infancy would predict higher infant negative affect at late infancy. Additionally, we hypothesized that the association between unpredictability in maternal sensory signals and infant negative affect would be stronger for male infants and in the context of prenatal tobacco and tobacco-cannabis exposure. Mother-child dyads (N=247) were recruited in pregnancy and oversampled for prenatal tobacco use (n=81 used tobacco only; n=97 co-used tobacco & cannabis; n=69 were demographically similar non-substance-using mothers; 51% Black, 31% White, 24% Hispanic/Latine). Prenatal substance use was measured using calendar based self-report interview, maternal saliva samples in each trimester of pregnancy, and infant meconium assayed for all substances. Maternal depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory; BDI) were measured prenatally and at 2-months of infant age. We applied Shannon’s entropy to the item distribution of the BDI at each timepoint to create prenatal and postnatal mood unpredictability scores. At 9-months, unpredictability in sensory signals was coded using a second-by-second behavioral paradigm from mother-infant free play interactions and infant negative affect was assessed using mother-report on the Infant Behavior Questionnaire. Higher prenatal depressive symptoms, postnatal mood unpredictability in depressive symptoms, and unpredictability in sensory signals were associated with higher infant negative affect. There was a significant two-way interaction of prenatal substance-exposure and unpredictability in sensory signals. Simple slopes indicated that unpredictability in sensory signals was associated with higher negative affect only for infants with prenatal exposure to tobacco or co-exposure to tobacco and cannabis. We also found a three-way interaction of prenatal tobacco-exposure by unpredictability in sensory signals by sex. The association between unpredictability in sensory signals and negative affect was significant for prenatally tobacco-exposed male infants (β=.43, p=.040) but not for non-exposed and tobacco-cannabis co-exposed male infants (β=.08, p=.624). Findings extend the literature by highlighting the unique roles of maternal mood and behavioral unpredictability since both accounted for unique variance in infant negative affect even controlling for the effects of the other. Additionally, findings provide novel evidence that the association between unpredictability in sensory signals and negative affect is stronger for infants who are prenatally exposed to tobacco and co-exposed to tobacco and cannabis, suggesting that prenatal exposure may increase susceptibility to nonoptimal maternal parenting. Consistent our hypothesis, the association between unpredictability in sensory signals and negative affect was strongest for prenatally tobacco-exposed male infants. This may reflect sex-specific vulnerability to unpredictable parenting in the context of exposure and future work replicating these findings is needed. |
|
| Paper #3 | |
|---|---|
| Moment-to-moment fluctuations in caregiver entropy shape the temporal dynamics of infant attention and statistical learning | |
| Author information | Role |
| Tess Allegra Forest, Columbia University, United States | Presenting author |
| Sarah A. McCormick, Northeastern University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Lauren Davel, University of Cape Town, South Africa | Non-presenting author |
| Nwabisa Mlandu, University of Cape Town, South Africa | Non-presenting author |
| Michal R. Zieff, University of Cape Town, South Africa | Non-presenting author |
| Khula South Africa Data Collection Team, University of Cape Town, South Africa | Non-presenting author |
| Columbia University Data Processing Team, Columbia University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Kirsty A. Donald, University of Cape Town, South Africa | Non-presenting author |
| Laurel Joy Gabard-Durnam, Northeastern University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Dima Amso, Columbia University, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
|
Early cognitive development is related to how predictable an infant’s caregiver is (Davis et al., 2017), but the exact mechanism driving this relationship is unknown. One possibility is that caregiver predictability shapes cognitive development by first shaping infant attention: infants might use regular interactions with their caregiver to learn when to attend to predictable information in service of learning, with downstream consequences for the development of general learning mechanisms. To test these ideas, we recorded naturalistic dyadic interactions between 2-6-month-old infants and their caregivers in South Africa and Malawi (N=222). Then, we hand-annotated infant attention (looking at caregiver) and five caregiver behaviors frame-by-frame, to measure how predictable caregivers were by calculating the entropy (Shannon, 1948) of their transitions between different behaviors. Our first question was whether caregiver predictability shapes the temporal dynamics of infant attention. To ask this, we measured caregiver predictability in two contexts (with and without toys present). Our results show that caregiver behavior is shaped by context, such that the least predictable behaviors were different with and without a toy present: caregiver entropy following vocalizations was higher without a toy present (t(114) = -2.70, p < 0.01, Cohen’s d = -0.34), while entropy following object holding was higher with a toy present (t(96) = 4.44, p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 0.60). Impressively, infant looking was tightly yoked to the most informative (highest entropy) signal in each context. There was also a significant quadratic relationship between caregiver entropy and infant looking (t = -3.02, p < 0.01) across time within-dyad, such that infant looking was highest when caregivers were slightly more predictable than their own average. Both these results suggest infants look at their own caregiver when she is providing information which is useful for their learning, and show that context-to-context and moment-to-moment fluctuations in caregiver predictability shape infants’ early attention, regardless of the cultural context an infant is in. Our second question was whether differences in caregiver predictability also shape the neurodevelopment of specific learning processes. We reasoned that statistical learning, a learning mechanism which allows infants to learn about predictable information, might be particularly sensitive to differences in the predictability of babies’ early environments. Thus, six months after their first visit, a subset of families (N=103) returned to participate in an auditory statistical learning task during EEG. We found evidence of learning-related change in infants’ neural responses to predictable information during the statistical learning task. The magnitude of statistical learning-related change in infants’ EEG responses was associated with the predictability of their caregivers’ vocalizations several months earlier, such that infants with more predictable caregiver vocalization patterns showed more evidence of statistical learning later in the first year of life (F(1,79)= 4.72, p = 0.03). These results together suggest that early experience with caregiver predictability shapes later learning, providing support for the hypothesis that caregiver predictability is related to cognitive development because caregiver predictability shapes the neurodevelopment of core learning and memory systems during key developmental windows. |
|
| Paper #4 | |
|---|---|
| Associations Between Unpredictable Maternal Sensory Signals and Children's Cognitive Self-Regulation from Infancy to Age 5 | |
| Author information | Role |
| Fiia Takio, University of Turku, Finland | Presenting author |
| Saara Nolvi, University of Turku, Finland | Non-presenting author |
| Pilvi Peura, University of Jyväskylä, Finland | Non-presenting author |
| Akie Yada, University of Jyväskylä, Finland | Non-presenting author |
| Pauliina Juntunen, University of Turku, Finland | Non-presenting author |
| Eeva Holmberg, University of Turku, Finland | Non-presenting author |
| Eeva Eskola, University of Turku, Finland | Non-presenting author |
| Anniina Karonen, University of Turku, Finland | Non-presenting author |
| Elisabeth Nordenswan, University of Turku, Finland | Non-presenting author |
| Kirby Deater-Deckard, University of Massachusetts Amherst, United States | Non-presenting author |
| Eeva-Leena Kataja, University of Turku, Finland | Non-presenting author |
| Linnea Karlsson, University of Turku, Finland | Non-presenting author |
| Hasse Karlsson, University of Turku, Finland | Non-presenting author |
| Riika Korja, University of Turku, Finland | Non-presenting author |
| Abstract | |
|
Introduction Early self-regulation development, which involves managing cognition, emotions, and behavior, is shaped by environmental unpredictability. Unpredictable signals in early life have been linked to poorer cognitive outcomes, including weaker memory performance. Sensory patterns, especially during sensitive developmental periods, influence brain development. Therefore, unpredictable maternal sensory signals in early childhood are considered potential risk factors for poorer self-regulation in children. This presentation will summarize findings from FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study on associations between unpredictable maternal sensory signals and child’s cognitive self-regulation from infancy to preschool. We examined whether the unpredictability in maternal sensory signals during mother-infant interactions is associated to effortful control during early childhood (Study 1) and at the age of five years (Study 2). Additionally, we investigated changes in unpredictability over time and its association with child executive functioning (EF) profiles at 8 months, 2.5 years, and 5 years (Study 3). Methods Study participants included 126 mother-child dyads (Study 1), 133 dyads (Study 2), and 541 dyads (Study 3), all of which are subsets of the larger FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study and its Focus Cohort, that include mothers with high and low psychological distress, measured during pregnancy (Karlsson et al., 2018). The degree of predictability of maternal sensory signals has been measured from the three time points (8 months, 2.5 years and 5 years) and characterized by the entropy rate derived from behavioral coding of the mother-child play episode. The child’s self-regulation has been assessed using the dimension of regulation and orientation from the IBQ at 12 months and the dimension of effortful control from the ECBQ at 24 months (Study 1), and from the CBQ at 5 years (Study 2). Child EF skills have been assessed using psychological measurements for general cognition, inhibition, and working memory with modified A-no-B task at 8 months, Snack Delay and Spin the Pots task at 2.5 years and with Forbidden Toy task, Delay of Gratification task and EF Touch battery (Arrows, Pigs, Farmer) at 5 years. Results Our results showed that the unpredictability of maternal sensory signals at 8 months was associated with lower regulation and orientation in children at 12 months of age, as well as lower effortful control at 24 months of age (Study 1). Higher unpredictability of maternal sensory signals in infancy was modestly associated with poorer effortful control in children at the age of 5 years (Study 2). Unpredictability of the patterns of maternal sensory signals showed slight change over time indicating increasing predictability (Study 3). From the early development of EF, three profiles were identified: one with below-average EF across all ages, and two average profiles differentiated by working memory task at the age of 5 years. The less unpredictable were the maternal sensory signals, the more likely the child belonged in to the average profile with highest working memory performance at the age of 5 years. Conclusions Our findings indicate that the unpredictability of maternal sensory signals associates to cognitive regulation in early development. Unpredictable environment is a notable factor affecting children’s well-being. |
|
⇦ Back to session
Multimethod Approaches to Examining Associations between Early Caregiver Unpredictability and Developmental Outcomes
Submission Type
Paper Symposium
Description
| Session Title | Multimethod Approaches to Examining Associations between Early Caregiver Unpredictability and Developmental Outcomes |