Maternal depression is associated with altered functional connectivity between neural circuits related to visual, auditory, and cognitive processing during stories listening in preschoolers.

Background: Maternal depression can influence the early activity of a mother reading stories to a young child, as depressed mothers are less likely to read to their children. Here, maternal depression association to neurobiological circuitry of narrative comprehension, visualization, and executive functions during stories listening was examined in 21 4-year-old girls and their mothers. Maternal depression scores were collected from the mothers, and functional MRI during stories listening was collected from the children.

Results: Increased maternal depression was related to decreased functional connectivity between visualization and auditory regions and increased connectivity between the right visual cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the children.

Conclusions: This study highlights the need to monitor maternal depression and provide interventions to ensure positive linguistic outcomes in children.