Longitudinal associations between prenatal internalizing symptoms and mindfulness traits with postnatal bonding difficulties.

Purpose: Mothers' reported connection, or bond, with their infants develops across the early postnatal period and is relevant to mother and offspring functioning. Little is known, however, about early predictors of bonding difficulties over time. The present study examined prenatal anxiety, depressive symptoms, and trait mindfulness and variation in bonding difficulties in mothers across the first two months postnatal.

Neural reactivity to infant emotion cues during pregnancy: Associations with peripartum anxiety and depressive symptoms.

Background: Pregnancy is marked by physiological and psychosocial changes for women, and event-related potentials (ERP) are comfortable and safe for examining brain function across pregnancy. The late positive potential (LPP) ERP, a measure of allocated attention to emotional stimuli, may provide insight into associations between internalizing symptoms and neural processing of infant emotion cues, which may be particularly salient in this life stage.

Methods: We developed a task to examine neural and behavioral responses to infant faces in pregnant women (N = 120, Mage=31.

Targeting positive valence systems function in children of mothers with depressive symptoms: A pilot randomized trial of an RDoC-Informed preventive intervention.

Reduced activation of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) positive valence systems (PVS) is observed in high-risk (HR) children of depressed mothers and predictive of future psychopathologies. We developed a dyadic, neuroscience-informed preventive intervention, Family Promoting Positive Emotions (FPPE), designed to prevent psychopathology in HR children by targeting PVS processes. We evaluated the initial efficacy of FPPE compared to written information (WI) psychoeducation in engaging PVS-related targets and reducing perceived stress and emotional distress symptoms in HR youth.

Benevolent Childhood Experiences and Childhood Maltreatment History: Examining their Roles in Depressive Symptoms Across the Peripartum Period.

Peripartum depressive symptoms are associated with a range of adverse outcomes for offspring and mothers. Childhood experiences, both negative and positive, may impact peripartum depression risk. Longitudinal studies are needed to examine trajectories of change in depression across the peripartum and predictors of symptoms across time.

Neural Predictors of Improvement With Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Adolescents With Depression: An Examination of Reward Responsiveness and Emotion Regulation.

Earlier depression onsets are associated with more debilitating courses and poorer life quality, highlighting the importance of effective early intervention. Many youths fail to improve with evidence-based treatments for depression, likely due in part to heterogeneity within the disorder. Multi-method assessment of individual differences in positive and negative emotion processing could improve predictions of treatment outcomes.

[Formula: see text] Neural and behavioral indicators of cognitive control in preschoolers with and without prenatal opioid exposure.

Prenatal opioid exposure is one consequence of the opioid epidemic, but effects on child development remain poorly understood. There is emerging evidence that children exposed to opioids in utero exhibit elevated emotional and behavioral problems, which may be partially due to alterations in cognitive control. Using multiple methods (i.

Resting state brain dynamics: Associations with childhood sexual abuse and major depressive disorder.

Early life stress (ELS) and major depressive disorder (MDD) share neural network abnormalities. However, it is unclear how ELS and MDD may separately and/or jointly relate to brain networks, and whether neural differences exist between depressed individuals with vs without ELS. Moreover, prior work evaluated static versus dynamic network properties, a critical gap considering brain networks show changes in coordinated activity over time.

Concordant neurophysiological signatures of cognitive control in humans and rats.

Progress towards understanding neural mechanisms in humans relevant to psychiatric conditions has been hindered by a lack of translationally-relevant cognitive tasks for laboratory animals. Accordingly, there is a critical need to develop parallel neurophysiological assessments of domains of cognition, such as cognitive control, in humans and laboratory animals. To address this, we developed a touchscreen-based cognitive (Eriksen Flanker) task in rats and used its key characteristics to construct a novel human version, with similar testing parameters and endpoints across species.

Neurobiological changes during the peripartum period: implications for health and behavior.

Pregnancy and the transition to parenthood is an important period marked by dramatic neurobiological and psychosocial changes that may have implications for the health of women and offspring. Although human and non-human animal research suggests that the brain undergoes alterations during the peripartum period, these changes are poorly understood. Here, we review existing research, particularly human neuroimaging and psychophysiological research, to examine changes in brain structure and function during the peripartum period and discuss potential implications for the health of women and offspring.

Optimizing assessments of post-error slowing: A neurobehavioral investigation of a flanker task.

Appropriately adjusting to errors is essential for adaptive behavior. Post-error slowing (PES) refers to the increased reaction times on trials following incorrect relative to correct responses. PES has been used as a metric of cognitive control in basic cognitive neuroscience research as well as clinical contexts.