Maternal Depression Calibrates Infants’ Neuroendocrine, Autonomic, and Inflammatory Stress Responsiveness

Funder: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Administered in: College of Health and Human Development

Abstract:

This project aims to determine when and how infants’ stress responsivity is calibrated by maternal depression, and how this calibration translates into child emotional and behavioral problems. We test the central hypothesis that early exposure to maternal depression predicts sensitization of stress systems—i.e., hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, autonomic nervous system, and/or immune-inflammatory function—that undermines the child’s psychological health through the following specific aims: (1) Determine whether maternal depression induces upward calibration of infant stress responsivity across systems; (2) Identify maternal depression profiles with the strongest impact on infant stress calibration; and (3) Characterize maladaptive stress system development through associations between infant stress response trajectories and deficits in self-regulatory functions. The findings will inform a truly developmental model of stress-related dysregulation while defining novel stress physiology targets for early mother/infant intervention to mitigate psychological health risks in children of depressed mothers.