AI Article Synopsis
- The study investigates how enhanced error-related negativity (ERN), a brain response linked to mistakes and emotional sensitivity, may be passed down from mothers to their children, potentially increasing the risk of internalizing psychopathologies (IPs) like anxiety and depression in offspring.
- It involved 117 mother-child pairs, focusing on the relationship between maternal ERN, parenting styles, and children’s internalizing symptoms, finding that mothers with heightened ERN tend to have children with similar patterns and more negative parenting styles.
- Results indicate that maternal ERN influences offspring's internalizing symptoms indirectly through their ERN patterns and maternal negative parenting, highlighting the need for further research on long-term effects and prevention strategies for IPs.*
Article Abstract
Background: Enhanced error-related negativity (ERN), an event-related potential component reflecting neural sensitivity to errors and threat, has been theorized to represent an endophenotype of internalizing psychopathologies (IPs). We tested whether intergenerational transmission of ERN patterns may confer risk for internalizing symptoms. We examined associations among maternal and offspring ERN and offspring internalizing symptoms. Given the role of parenting in IP risk, we also explored how maternal negative parenting styles related to maternal ERN and offspring internalizing symptoms.
Methods: Participants included 117 biological mother-child dyads (ages 9-16 years, 70.9% female). Of these, 72 mothers had a history of major depression (32 with lifetime anxiety), and 45 had no history of psychiatric illness. Dyads completed psychiatric interviews, parenting questionnaires, and a flanker task to elicit the ERN while an electroencephalogram was recorded.
Results: Path analyses revealed that maternal ERN was significantly associated with enhanced offspring ERN and greater negative parenting styles. Enhanced offspring ERN and maternal negative parenting styles were significantly related to greater internalizing symptoms in offspring. Maternal ERN had a significant indirect effect on offspring internalizing symptoms through offspring ERN and maternal negative parenting styles, above the effects of self-reported maternal internalizing symptoms. Maternal IP history did not moderate pathways.
Conclusions: Study findings suggest that enhanced maternal ERN is indirectly associated with greater offspring internalizing symptoms through its relationship to offspring ERN and negative parenting styles. Future longitudinal work is needed to evaluate the temporal timing and directionality of these tested pathways and their clinical implications for the prevention of IPs.
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Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8995320 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2021.10.007 | DOI Listing |
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