Substance use and mothers’ neural responses to infant cues

Abstract

Substance use may influence mothers' responsiveness to their infants and negatively impact the parent-infant relationship. Maternal substance use may co-opt neural circuitry involved in caregiving, thus reducing the salience of infant cues and diminishing the sense of reward experienced by caring for infants. Gaps in understanding exist with regard to the mechanisms by which substance use operates to influence mothers' processing of infant cues and how this translates to caregiving. Therefore, we examined how substance use might relate to maternal neural responses to infant cues using event-related potentials (ERPs). Substance-using (n = 29) and nonsubstanceusing (n = 29) mothers viewed photographs of infant faces and heard recordings of infant vocalizations while electroencephalography was recorded simultaneously.

How stress can influence brain adaptations to motherhood

“…Stress can negatively influence already-compromised sleep quality among pregnant women and new mothers during this time. Moreover, stress can increase risks for substance use ( Marcenko et al, 2000 , Mezick et al, 2008 , Tanya Nagahawatte and Goldenberg, 2008 ) and inflammatory dysregulation ( Coussons-Read et al, 2007 ), which can disrupt mothers’ brain and psychological adaptations to parenthood ( Corwin et al, 2008 , Kim et al, 2017b , Landi et al, 2011 , Lowell et al, 2020 , Swain et al, 2019 ).…”

“A Window of Opportunity”: Parenting and Addiction in the Context of Pregnancy

“…Mothers with addiction may also show an impoverished neural discrimination of infant facial and vocal emotional cues at least postnatally [30], although research remains lacking on whether these deficits are already present during pregnancy. Such findings suggest global deficits in the neural, substance-related mechanisms of caregiving that should be targeted already during pregnancy by simultaneously supporting abstinence, emerging motherhood, and a relationship with the fetus.…”

Mothering from the Inside Out: Addressing the Intersection of Addiction, Adversity, and Attachment with Evidence-Based Parenting Intervention

“…Next, given the potential role of maternal neurophysiology in the caregiving challenges experienced by mothers with addictions [ 30 •, 31 , 32 •, 33 ••, 34 , 35 ••], future research should also examine the impact of MIO on mothers’ neural responses to infant cues. The use of event-related potential research methods within clinical trials of parenting interventions has proven feasible.…”

“…This may be related to the focus that skills-based programs place on procedures of overt behavior management and lack of emphasis on helping parents understand and meet the emotional needs underlying their children’s behavior [ 25 – 27 ]. This shortcoming is considerable in light of recent evidence that mothers with addictions demonstrate altered neural responses to infant affective cues (e.g., faces and cries), suggesting that skills training may not sufficiently address the mechanisms underlying caregiving difficulties [ 28 , 29 , 30 •, 31 , 32 •, 33 ]. Skills-based programs may also have the unintentional effect of increasing parenting stress as parents are encouraged to engage in strategies including time-out and planned ignoring, during which a toddler’s difficult behavior may escalate.…”

“…Given the comorbidity of addiction and adversity [ 58 , 38 , 43 ], the impact of addiction and adversity on maternal neurobiology [ 30 •, 32 •, 42 •], and the neurobiological underpinnings of maternal RF [ 59 ], it is no wonder that mothers struggling with addiction often struggle to mentalize. Studies have shown that mothers with addictions generally show weak RF [ 7 ] and demonstrate significantly lower RF than mothers without addictions [ 60 ].…”