Withdrawn and intrusive maternal interaction style and infant frontal EEG asymmetry shifts in infants of depressed and non-depressed mothers

Abstract

The effects of maternal interaction style (intrusive/withdrawn) on the development of brain electrical activity were studied in infants of depressed and non-depressed mothers shortly after birth and again at 3-6 months of age. Infants of depressed mothers exhibited significantly greater relative right frontal EEG activation than infants of non-depressed mothers. Infants of depressed withdrawn mothers exhibited greater relative right frontal EEG activation than infants of depressed intrusive mothers. Furthermore, while infants of depressed mothers with intrusive interaction styles showed a shift towards greater relative left frontal EEG activation from birth to 3-6 months, infants of depressed mothers with withdrawn interaction styles showed a shift towards greater relative right frontal EEG activation. Keywords EEG asymmetry; Depression; Interaction styleMaternal depression has negative effects on infant behavior and physiology. For example, newborns of depressed mothers are more irritable, less consolable (Whiffen & Gotlib, 1989;Zuckerman, Als, Bauchner, Parker, & Cabral, 1990) and less responsive to stimulation (Abrams, Field, Scafidi, & Prodromidis, 1996). Infants of depressed mothers are also less responsive to facial expressions and show more negative and less positive affect when interacting with both their mothers (Cohn, Campbell, Matias, & Hopkins, 1990;Field, 1984) and a non-distressed adult (Field et al., 1988). In addition, infants of depressed mothers exhibit a distinct physiological profile marked by greater relative right frontal EEG activation (Dawson, Klinger, Panagiotides, Hill, & Spieker, 1992;Dawson et al., 1999;Field, Pickens, Fox, & Gonzalez, 1996;Jones, Field, Fox, Lundy, & Davalos, 1997).Asymmetries in brain electrical activity (EEG) over the frontal cortex are associated with the balance of the neural activity underlying two essential dimensions of affect regulation including behavioral approach and behavioral withdrawal (Davidson, 1996 andFox, 1994). Greater relative right frontal EEG activation is thought to reflect greater behavioral withdrawal and has been associated with responses to negative stimuli, inhibited behavior, negative affect and poor emotion regulation (Davidson, 1996 andFox, 1994). Infants also exhibit greater relative right frontal EEG activation during the expression, regulation and perception of negative/ withdrawal emotions (Davidson & Fox, 1982;Field, Pickens, Fox, Gonzalez, & Nawrocki, 1998 activation has been consistently noted in depressed adults (see Davidson, 1996 andDavidson, 2000 for reviews) and infants of depressed mothers as early as birth and Jones et al., 1998.Frontal EEG asymmetry profiles in depressed individuals have been shown to remain stable across time (Tomarken, Keener, & Neubauer, 1994; Vuga et al., 2006) and are present even when these individuals show a remission in their behavioral symptoms (Henriques & Davidson, 1990). Frontal EEG asymmetry profiles have also been shown to remain stable from 1 month to 3 months (Jones, Field, Fox, ...

Effects of mothers' prenatal psychiatric status and postnatal caregiving on infant biobehavioral regulation: Can prenatal programming be modified?

“…Consistent with previous studies [13,14], we found that infant physiology and behavior was significantly influenced by caregiving behavior. Higher levels of HRV have been associated with more adaptive emotion regulation in children [40] and adults [41].…”

“…In 2006, Diego et al [14] found that right frontal EEG asymmetry was most pronounced for infants of depressed women who were also characterized as withdrawn or intrusive, suggesting that insensitive caregiving may exacerbate the adverse effects of prenatal depression. In the current study, we present evidence that maternal sensitivity modulates the effect of antenatal depression and anxiety on infant cortisol, suggesting that the epigenetic processes leading to associations between antenatal mood and stress-related physiology in the perinate can be over-ridden by postnatal environmental factors such as the quality of parenting.…”

“…Maternal depression and anxiety have been associated with disturbances in the quality of caregiving, specifically in parental sensitivity, which is the extent to which the parent can consistently read and respond to the child's cues. Parental sensitivity is an important aspect of caregiving and has been shown to play an integral role in adaptive self-regulatory behaviors [11,12], and more recently, in infant fearfulness and right frontal EEG asymmetry [13,14]. Depressed and anxious mothers tend to be less emotionally available to their children, often displaying signs of withdrawal and disinterest or behaving in an intrusive and hostile manner [15][16][17].…”

Maternal-infant mental health: postpartum group intervention

“…Mothers with mood and anxiety disorders often have difficulty responding appropriately to infant cues, with both underresponsiveness and over-responsiveness as possible behaviors (Diego et al 2006). They may interpret normal infant behaviors as abnormal, affecting parenting confidence (Arteche et al 2011).…”

Parent-Child Interactions in Families with Mothers who had Experienced Early Relational Traumas

“…Brazelton and colleagues (1974) found that these interactions are characterized by emotional unavailability during daily routines such as feeding or breast-feeding (Tronick, & Weinberg, 1997;Diego, Field, Jones, & Hernandez-Reif, 2006). Despite many studies have underlined that parent-infant interactions during the feeding of the child may be considered important (Oppenheim, Koren-Karie, & Sagi-Schwartz, 2007) to assess the quality of these relationships, most studies have evaluated play routines, whereas only a few have observed feeding interactions (Blissett, 2011).…”