Session Chair:
Natalie H. Brito, PhD, Associate Professor of Applied Psychology, New York University, New York, United States
Presenters:
Millie Rincón-Cortés, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Dallas, United States
Annie Aitken, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, New York University, New York, United States
Dylan G. Gee, PhD, Associate Professor Tenure, Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, United States
Kieran J. O’Donnell, PhD, Assistant Professor, Child Study Center & Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, United States
Symposium Description:
Environmental adversity during sensitive developmental periods profoundly alters neurobiological and behavioral trajectories, often resulting in long-term mental health consequences. This symposium highlights innovative longitudinal and translational models that elucidate how the timing of adversity exposure modulates neurodevelopmental outcomes, with implications for understanding risk and resilience. First, Dr. Millie Rincón-Cortés uses a rodent model of resource scarcity to investigate how postpartum adversity alters maternal behavior and mesolimbic dopamine function. Her work demonstrates that postpartum adversity impairs maternal motivation and pup-directed behaviors, with potential for intergenerational effects on offspring neurobehavioral outcomes. Dr. Annie Aitken introduces a remote study leveraging ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and wearable technologies to capture real-time psychophysiological changes in postpartum mothers. This longitudinal work examines how fluctuations in maternal mental health predict infant neurocognitive outcomes, emphasizing the perinatal period as a sensitive window for intervention. Dr. Dylan Gee explores heterogeneity in the developmental timing of adversity exposure and its neurobiological correlates. Her research identifies critical windows in middle childhood where adversity exposure may promote adaptive neural responses that mitigate anxiety and post-traumatic stress symptoms. Finally, Dr. Kieran O’Donnell applies advanced statistical methods to examine the long-term impact of parental depression exposure, emphasizing distinct sensitive periods across development that predict psychiatric risk in young adulthood. His findings underscore the importance of considering both maternal and paternal effects over time. Collectively, these presentations will provide novel insights into the interplay between adversity timing and neurodevelopment, drawing on diverse methodologies from both human and animal models, and highlighting opportunities for targeted prevention and intervention.
List of abstracts and presenters:
INTERGENERATIONAL EFFECTS OF MATERNAL ADVERSITY ON BEHAVIORAL AND MESOLIMBIC DOPAMINE FUNCTION
Millie Rincón-Cortés, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Dallas
Maternal mental health disorders affect millions of women worldwide and can have devastating consequences for both mother and child. Exposure to postpartum adversity significantly increases risk for maternal mental health disorders. Understanding how postpartum adversity impacts maternal brain function is crucial for developing more effective treatments, as postpartum mood disorders not only impair maternal wellbeing but can also have lasting negative effects on child development. To this end, we used a resource scarcity model to examine how adverse postpartum environments affect mother-infant interactions, maternal motivation and dopaminergic function. Our findings demonstrate that exposure to postpartum resource scarcity significantly increases adverse pup-directed behaviors, reduces pup retrieval and impairs pup reward learning. These behavioral deficits correlate with reduced activity in the mesolimbic dopamine system, as evidenced by decreased firing rates of dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area. These observed neurobehavioral changes suggest that postpartum adversity induces an amotivated state with implications for maternal care quality. In addition, we examined the impact of early life adversity due to adverse caregiving in the adult female offspring of dams exposed to resource scarcity. Our results provide insight into the neurobiological mechanisms through which adverse environments may contribute to postpartum mood disorders in the mother and neurobehavioral dysfunction in the offspring.
A NOVEL EMA AND WEARABLE METHODOLOGY TO CHARACTERIZE EARLY POSTPARTUM PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES AND LONGITUDINAL IMPACTS ON INFANT NEUROCOGNITION
Annie Aitken, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, New York University, New York, United States
The early postpartum period is characterized by significant physiological and psychological transition for both mothers and infants. These changes can contribute to the onset of postpartum psychopathologies in mothers, coinciding with a sensitive window of infant neurodevelopmental plasticity. The high prevalence and underdiagnosis of postpartum depression and anxiety highlight the need for accessible, real-time monitoring. The PEACH (postpartum ecological assessment of cognitive health) Study introduces a novel, low-burden remote methodology using SMS-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and wearable technology to track maternal mental health and physiology. Currently, 35 mothers are enrolled, with a projected final sample of N=100, representing a sociodemographically and geographically diverse study sample. Participants are enrolled prenatally and receive a Fitbit wearable at two weeks postpartum, along with weekly text-message EMA surveys to assess depression, anxiety, and perceived stress for three months. Infant neurocognitive outcomes are assessed at four months via a remote online visit, measuring infant attention and physiological function. Preliminary results indicate high adherence and data quality, with an 80% completion rate for wearable data and a 95% completion rate for EMA surveys. At enrollment completion, each mother contributes approximately 80 biometric readings and 42 EMA survey responses. Planned analyses will examine within-person, time-varying associations between Fitbit-derived physiological markers and EMA-reported postpartum mental health. Longitudinal modeling will assess how the timing and individual differences in postpartum maternal physiological and psychological fluctuations predict infant neurocognitive outcomes.
PARSING HETEROGENEITY IN THE DEVELOPMENTAL TIMING OF ADVERSITY AND NEUROBIOLOGICAL CORRELATES OF ANXIETY
Dylan G. Gee, PhD, Associate Professor Tenure, Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, United States
Early-life adversity is a potent risk factor for psychopathology, yet there is substantial variability in outcomes following adversity. Given dynamic changes across brain development, the developmental timing of adversity exposure may relate to mental health outcomes. In two complementary studies, we examined how adversity exposure at distinct developmental stages relates to later neurobiological functioning and anxiety. The first study applied latent profile analysis in a sample of 120 young adults to identify patterns of adversity exposure and neural responses to threat and safety. The subgroup exposed to moderate adversity exposure in middle childhood and adolescence and displaying enhanced neural threat/safety discrimination had lower anxiety than the other subgroups. The second study used sparse canonical correlation analysis in 107 young adults to examine associations between the developmental timing of adversity and white matter connectivity. Latent patterns of tract connectivity associated with adversity in middle childhood predicted post-traumatic stress symptoms. Together, these findings highlight the importance of developmental timing in adversity-related neurobiological adaptations and suggest that middle childhood adversity exposure may, in some cases, support resilience via enhanced safety learning. Understanding these nuanced associations may inform targeted interventions to mitigate risk and promote resilience in individuals exposed to early adversity.
DEVELOPMENTAL EXPOSURE TO PARENTAL DEPRESSION AND PSYCHIATRIC RISK IN YOUNG ADULTHOOD
Kieran J. O’Donnell, PhD, Assistant Professor, Child Study Center & Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, United States
Prenatal exposure to maternal depression associates with a doubling of risk for psychiatric disorders in childhood. Such findings point to pregnancy as a potential ‘sensitive period’ of exposure. However, existing studies on the fetal origins of mental health typically rely on subjective maternal reports of child/adolescent symptoms, rarely extend beyond adolescence, and often fail to consider paternal effects. Capitalizing on a unique data resource that provides repeated measures of maternal and paternal depression across two decades of life, extending from early pregnancy onwards, paired with offspring psychiatric symptom data spanning multiple domains including: depression, anxiety, psychotic experiences, and alcohol use disorder (N~3000) we applied a powerful statistical framework (Distributed Lag Models) to better quantify the impact of developmental exposure to maternal and paternal depression on psychiatric risk in adulthood. We observed distinct temporal associations between maternal and paternal depression and adult psychiatric symptoms. Maternal effects often emerged during pregnancy with paternal effects evident from early childhood onwards. These new findings advance our understanding of the impact of maternal and paternal depression on adult psychiatric risk and have implications for the timing of preventive interventions that seek to mitigate the impact of parental depression on offspring psychiatric risk.