Potential Neural Mediators of Mom Power Parenting Intervention Effects on Maternal Intersubjectivity and Stress Resilience

Abstract

Stress resilience in parenting depends on the parent's capacity to understand subjective experiences in self and child, namely intersubjectivity, which is intimately related to mimicking other's affective expressions (i. e., mirroring). Stress can worsen parenting by potentiating problems that can impair intersubjectivity, e.g., problems of “over-mentalizing” (misattribution of the child's behaviors) and “under-coupling” (inadequate child-oriented mirroring). Previously we have developed Mom Power (MP) parenting intervention to promote maternal intersubjectivity and reduce parenting stress. This study aimed to elucidate neural mechanisms underlying the effects of MP with a novel Child Face Mirroring Task (CFMT) in functional magnetic-resonance-imaging settings. In CFMT, the participants responded to own and other's child's facial pictures in three task conditions: (1) empathic mirroring (Join), (2) non-mirroring observing (Observe), and (3) voluntary responding (React). In each condition, each child's neutral, ambiguous, distressed, and joyful expressions were repeatedly displayed. We examined the CFMT-related neural responses in a sample of healthy mothers (n = 45) in Study 1, and MP effects on CFMT with a pre-intervention (T1) and post-intervention (T2) design in two groups, MP (n = 19) and Control (n = 17), in Study 2. We found that, from T1 to T2, MP (vs. Control) decreased parenting stress, decreased dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) during own-child-specific voluntary responding (React to Own vs. Other's Child), and increased activity in the frontoparietal cortices, midbrain, nucleus accumbens, and amygdala during own-child-specific empathic mirroring (Join vs. Observe of Own vs. Other's Child). We identified that MP effects on parenting stress were potentially mediated by T1-to-T2 changes in: (1) the left superior-temporal-gyrus differential responses in the contrast of Join vs. Observe of own (vs. other's) child, (2) the dmPFC-PAG (periaqueductal gray) differential functional connectivity in the same contrast, and (3) the left amygdala differential responses in the contrast of Join vs. Observe of own (vs. other's) child's joyful vs. distressed expressions. We discussed these results in support of the notion that MP reduces parenting stress via changing neural activities related to the problems of “over-mentalizing” and “under-coupling.” Additionally, we discussed theoretical relationships between parenting stress and intersubjectivity in a novel dyadic active inference framework in a two-agent system to guide future research.

Compassion As an Intervention to Attune to Universal Suffering of Self and Others in Conflicts: A Translational Framework

“…In a longitudinal study (Singer and Engert, 2019), distinct constructs of attention and interoception (present-moment), socio-emotional processes (compassion and loving-kindness), and meta-cognitive processes (perspectivetaking), were evaluated and found to be differentially augmented in the 9-month training program; generally, the results supported differential neural plasticity that promoted differential training effects on social cognition, altruism, and hormonal response to psychosocial stress. Notably, we recently reported how a compassion-promoting parenting intervention in mothers promoted the attunement to their child through the changes in the brain network in support of our predictions, e.g., better maternal attunement to the child was associated with decreased parenting stress and increases in attunementdependent responses in the amygdala and reality-checking networks; the training also decreased dmPFC responses that may mediate child-specific conceptual thoughts when the mothers responded to the child; the decreases in functional connectivity between PAG and dmPFC were associated with decreases in parenting stress, suggesting that maternal stress was reduced when relatively less defensive signals from PAG were channeled to the mothers' mental images of the child, which would have "stained" the maternal perception of the child (Ho et al, 2020).…”

“…The authors of the study suggested that compassion meditation can cultivate an enhanced motivation to look at visual images depicting suffering while attenuating amygdala responses to the aversiveness of stimuli. However, an alternative interpretation may be that the compassion training increased the synchrony between the negative valence of the pictures and the valence-dependent responses in the amygdala, as suggested by a recent study on compassion-promoting parenting intervention effects on amygdala (Ho et al, 2020).…”

The neuroscience of social feelings: mechanisms of adaptive social functioning

“…This can be approximated in the maternal imitation of own vs. other infant facial expressions, which predictably activated their mirror neuron brain circuits, including insula and amygdala according to maternal reflective function ( Lenzi et al, 2009 ). With an updated child face mirror task, requiring mothers to “empathically join” vs. “observe” own (vs. other’s) child’s joyful vs. distressed expressions, parenting stress was inversely associated with amygdala responses ( Ho et al, 2020 ).…”

“…7B ). Finally, MP significantly increased maternal empathy-dependent amygdala responses for own versus other child’s joyful expressions ( Ho et al, 2020 ). Another intervention, Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC), was associated with larger increases in event related potential responses to emotional faces relative to neutral faces, which in turn was associated with observed maternal sensitivity ( Bernard et al, 2015 ) and greater responses for ~10 year olds to own mother picture cues in social cognition regions: precuneus, cingulate, and hippocampus ( Valadez et al, 2020 ).…”

An Integrated Mechanistic Model of Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement for Opioid-Exposed Mother–Infant Dyads

“…A larger community-based RCT (N = 122) found improvements in mental health and parenting stress for high-risk mothers after participating in MOM Power, in contrast to negative parenting outcomes (i.e., increase parent-child role-reversal) for the control group (Rosenblum et al, 2017). The effects of MOM Power on MBN have been examined with two fMRI studies utilizing a Child Facing Mirroring Task and fMRI (Ho et al, 2020). The authors found that participation in MOM Power led to decreased parenting stress which may have been mediated by changes in left superior-temporal-gyrus, peraqueductal gray, and left amygdala.…”