title: Parent-child intervention decreases stress and increases maternal brain activity and connectivity during own baby-cry: An exploratory study.
abstract: Parental responses to their children are crucially influenced by stress. However, brain-based mechanistic understanding of the adverse effects of parenting stress and benefits of therapeutic interventions is lacking. We studied maternal brain responses to salient child signals as a function of Mom Power (MP), an attachment-based parenting intervention established to decrease maternal distress. Twenty-nine mothers underwent two functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scans during a baby-cry task designed to solicit maternal responses to child's or self's distress signals. Between scans, mothers were pseudorandomly assigned to either MP (n = 14) or control (n = 15) with groups balanced for depression. Compared to control, MP decreased parenting stress and increased child-focused responses in social brain areas highlighted by the precuneus and its functional connectivity with subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, which are key components of reflective self-awareness and decision-making neurocircuitry. Furthermore, over 13 weeks, reduction in parenting stress was related to increasing child- versus self-focused baby-cry responses in amygdala-temporal pole functional connectivity, which may mediate maternal ability to take her child's perspective. Although replication in larger samples is needed, the results of this first parental-brain intervention study demonstrate robust stress-related brain circuits for maternal care that can be modulated by psychotherapy.
authors.affiliation: Stony Brook University Medical Center.
authors.forename: James E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Swain
authors.affiliation: Stony Brook University Medical Center.
authors.forename: S Shaun
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.affiliation: University of Michigan,Ann Arbor.
authors.forename: Katherine L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Rosenblum
authors.affiliation: East Tennessee State University.
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Morelen
authors.affiliation: Wayne State University.
authors.forename: Carolyn J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Dayton
authors.affiliation: University of Michigan,Ann Arbor.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Muzik
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D063132:Connectome; D003448:Crying / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009034:Mother-Child Relations / Q000523:psychology*; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D011615:Psychotherapy, Group / Q000379:methods*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000628:therapy*