Socioeconomic disadvantages and neural sensitivity to infant cry: role of maternal distress

Abstract

Socioeconomic disadvantage such as poverty can increase distress levels, which may further make low-income mothers more vulnerable to difficulties in the transition to parenthood. However, little is known about the neurobiological processes by which poverty and maternal distress are associated with risks for adaptations to motherhood. Thus, the current study examined the associations between income and neural responses to infant cry sounds among first-time new mothers (N = 28) during the early postpartum period. Lower income was associated with reduced responses to infant cry in the medial prefrontal gyrus (involved in evaluating emotional values of stimuli), middle prefrontal gyrus (involved in affective regulation) and superior temporal gyrus (involved in sensory information processing). When examining the role of maternal distress, we found a mediating role of perceived stress, but not depressive symptoms, in the links between income and prefrontal responses to infant cry. Reduced neural responses to infant cry in the right middle frontal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus were further associated with less positive perceptions of parenting. The results demonstrate that perceived stress associated with socioeconomic disadvantages may contribute to reduced neural responses to infant cry, which is further associated with less positive perceptions of motherhood.

Socioeconomic disadvantage, neural responses to infant emotions, and emotional availability among first-time new mothers

“…These stressors influence amygdalar responses to emotional cues in adults (Dannlowski et al, 2013; Davidson & McEwen, 2012; Kim et al, 2013), thus, we speculate that emotional distress may fail to reflect the multiple stress pathways by which socioeconomic disadvantage influence amygdala responses to infant emotional cues. It should also be noted that our finding is inconsistent with previous studies showing that heightened levels of maternal distress were associated with new mothers’ dampened amygdala responses to positive infant faces (Barrett et al, 2012) and reduced prefrontal responses to infant cry sounds (Kim et al, 2016a). The differences may be due to the fact that these two studies included own baby stimuli while the current study did not.…”

“…Such differences in the amygdala responses may further be associated with mothers’ emotional responses to infant emotional cues. In a previous study, low-income mothers also exhibited reduced responses to infant cry sounds in the medial and middle prefrontal regions (Kim et al, 2016a). Together, this may point to altered neural regulation of infant distress cues among new mothers, as heightened amygdala and dampened prefrontal response to negative cues have been markers for altered affective processing and regulation (Etkin, Prater, Schatzberg, Menon, & Greicius, 2009; Ochsner, Silvers, & Buhle, 2012).…”

“…Thus, a total of 39 mothers were included in the analyses presented here. Among them, 27 participants were overlapping with the sample of a previously published paper using a different fMRI task (Kim et al, 2016a). Their demographic characteristics are described in Table 1.…”

“…Socioeconomic disadvantage has been linked to mothers’ more limited emotional availability for their own infants (Little & Carter, 2005; Oyen, Landy, & Hilburn-Cobb, 2000). Socioeconomic disadvantage was also associated with increased maternal distress, which was then linked to reduced neural responses to infant cry in medial and middle prefrontal regions among first-time mothers (Kim, Capistrano, & Congleton, 2016a). However, this study did not examine the relations between neural activation and mothers’ own parental behaviors nor include different types of infants’ emotion cues.…”

Cortical thickness variation of the maternal brain in the first 6 months postpartum: associations with parental self-efficacy

“…the insula, parietal cortex) (Kim et al, 2010). Human mothers exhibit enhanced functional responses in these brain regions to their own infant cues, such as cry sounds and faces (Barrett et al, 2012; Kim et al, 2016; Nitschke et al, 2004), and such enhanced neural responses correlate with mothers’ sensitive caregiving behaviors during interactions with their own infant (Atzil et al, 2011; Hipwell et al, 2015; Kim et al, 2011b; Musser et al, 2012). …”