title: Maternal buffering of fear-potentiated startle in children and adolescents with trauma exposure.
abstract: Parental availability influences fear expression and learning across species, but the effect of maternal buffering on fear learning in humans is unknown. Here we investigated the effect of maternal availability during fear conditioning in a group of children (ages 8-10) and adolescents (ages 11-13) from a low-income population with a range of trauma exposure. Acoustic startle response data were collected to measure fear-potentiated startle (FPS) in 104 participants. A total of 62 participants were tested with the mother available and 42 when the mother was not in the testing room. We observed that maternal availability during fear conditioning interacted with age to affect FPS discrimination between CS+ and CS-. In line with previous findings suggesting an absence of maternal buffering in adolescents, fear discrimination was affected by maternal availability only in children. Second, we observed that the effect of maternal buffering on FPS discrimination in children was not influenced by maternally reported warmth. In conclusion, we demonstrated that maternal availability improved discrimination in children, regardless of the quality of the relationship. Adolescents discriminated irrespective of maternal status, suggesting that childhood may be a sensitive period for environmental influences on key processes such as learning of danger and safety signals.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences , Emory University School of Medicine , Atlanta , GA , USA.
authors.forename: Sanne J H
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: van Rooij
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences , Emory University School of Medicine , Atlanta , GA , USA.
authors.forename: Dorthie
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cross
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences , Emory University School of Medicine , Atlanta , GA , USA.
authors.forename: Jennifer S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Stevens
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences , Emory University School of Medicine , Atlanta , GA , USA.
authors.forename: L Alexander
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Vance
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences , Emory University School of Medicine , Atlanta , GA , USA.
authors.forename: Ye Ji
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: b Atlanta VA Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences , Emory University School of Medicine , Decatur , GA , USA.
authors.forename: Bekh
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bradley
authors.affiliation: c Department of Psychology , Colombia University , New York , NY , USA.
authors.forename: Nim
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tottenham
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences , Emory University School of Medicine , Atlanta , GA , USA.
authors.forename: Tanja
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jovanovic
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001307:Auditory Perception; D002648:Child; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009034:Mother-Child Relations / Q000523:psychology*; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology; D011203:Poverty; D011581:Psychological Tests; D013216:Reflex, Startle; D055139:Sensory Gating; D012919:Social Behavior; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology
keywords: Fear conditioning; fear-potentiated startle; maternal buffering; maternal warmth; trauma exposure