Examining the relationship between fetal cortical thickness, gestational age, and maternal psychological distress.

Dev Cogn Neurosci

Developing Brain Institute, Children's National, Washington, DC, USA; Division of Diagnostic Imaging and Radiology, Children's National, Washington, DC, USA. Electronic address:

Published: October 2023

In utero exposure to maternal stress, anxiety, and depression has been associated with reduced cortical thickness (CT), and CT changes, in turn, to adverse neuropsychiatric outcomes. Here, we investigated global and regional (G/RCT) changes associated with fetal exposure to maternal psychological distress in 265 brain MRI studies from 177 healthy fetuses of low-risk pregnant women. GCT was measured from cortical gray matter (CGM) voxels; RCT was estimated from 82 cortical regions. GCT and RCT in 87% of regions strongly correlated with GA. Fetal exposure was most strongly associated with RCT in the parahippocampal region, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and supramarginal gyrus suggesting that cortical alterations commonly associated with prenatal exposure could emerge in-utero. However, we note that while regional fetal brain involvement conformed to patterns observed in newborns and children exposed to prenatal maternal psychological distress, the reported associations did not survive multiple comparisons correction. This could be because the effects are more subtle in this early developmental window or because majority of the pregnant women in our study did not experience high levels of maternal distress. It is our hope that the current findings will spur future hypothesis-driven studies that include a full spectrum of maternal mental health scores.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10407290PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101282DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

maternal psychological
12
psychological distress
12
cortical thickness
8
exposure maternal
8
fetal exposure
8
pregnant women
8
maternal
6
cortical
5
examining relationship
4
fetal
4

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!