ArticleBiological psychiatry2013
Prenatal maternal depression associates with microstructure of right amygdala in neonates at birth.
Article in Biological psychiatry, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 122 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
122 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 256 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Relationship Between Family History of Depression and Brain Structure and Function: A Systematic Review of Large Cohorts.Biological psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- The Transdiagnostic Origins of Anxiety and Depression During the Pediatric Period: Linking NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Constructs to Ecological Systems.Development and psychopathology · 2021Pooled it
- Risk of Depression in the Adolescent and Adult Offspring of Mothers With Perinatal Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.JAMA network open · 2020Pooled it
- Infant hippocampal and amygdala volume in an observational follow-up from a randomized clinical trial for maternal prenatal depression.Nature communications · 2026Trial
- Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging Findings in Children after Antenatal Maternal Depression Treatment, a Longitudinal Study Built on a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Trial
- An experimental test of the fetal programming hypothesis: Can we reduce child ontogenetic vulnerability to psychopathology by decreasing maternal depression?Development and psychopathology · 2018Trial
- Postnatal distress, neonatal cerebellar myelination and neurodevelopmental outcomes at 18 months.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Investigating the influence of maternal prenatal BMI and perinatal depressive symptoms on neonatal brain network dynamics.Pediatric research · 2026Article
- Maternal sleep deprivation and developmental programming of brain aging trajectories in offspring.Biogerontology · 2026Review
- Neonatal amygdala microstructure and structural connectivity are associated with autistic traits at 2 years of age.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2026Article
- Maternal mood entropy and children's hippocampal development: Enduring versus transient effects.Development and psychopathology · 2026Article
- Prenatal maternal psychological distress is associated with neurodevelopmental outcomes in toddlers with congenital heart disease.Pediatric research · 2026Article
- Maternal depression with and without a history of childhood maltreatment and newborn white matter microstructure.Psychological medicine · 2026Article
- Early-life neural correlates of behavioral inhibition and anxiety risk.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- The promise of infant MRI in psychiatry: toward a framework for neural network measures in early emotional and behavioral risk identification and new intervention targets.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- Neurodevelopment in congenital heart disease: a review of antenatal mechanisms and therapeutic potentials.Pediatric research · 2025Review
- Pre- and postnatal maternal depressive symptoms associated with local connectivity of the left amygdala in 5-year-olds.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2025Article
- COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Prenatal Distress and Infant Functional Brain Development.JAACAP open · 2025Article
- The association between prenatal maternal anxiety, infant brain volumes, and temperament during the COVID-19 pandemic.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Prenatal Household Income Instability and Infant Subcortical Brain Volumes.Developmental science · 2025Article
62 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAntenatal maternal cortisol levels associate with alterations in the amygdala, a structure associated with emotion regulation, in the offspring. However, because offspring brain and behavior are commonly assessed years after birth, the timing of such maternal influences is unclear. This study aimed to examine the association between antenatal maternal depressive symptomatology and neonatal amygdala volume and microstructure and thus establish evidence for the transgenerational transmission of vulnerability for affective disorders during prenatal development.
methodsOur study recruited Asian mothers at 10 to 13 weeks pregnancy and assessed maternal depression at 26 weeks gestation using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Structural magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging were performed with 157 nonsedated, 6- to 14-day-old newborns and then analyzed to extract the volume, fractional anisotropy, and axial diffusivity values of the amygdala.
resultsAdjusting for household income, maternal age, and smoking exposure, postconceptual age at magnetic resonance imaging, and birth weight, we found significantly lower fractional anisotropy (p = .009) and axial diffusivity (p = .028), but not volume (p = .993), in the right amygdala in the infants of mothers with high compared with those with low-normal Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale scores.
conclusionsThe results reveal a significant relation between antenatal maternal depression and the neonatal microstructure of the right amygdala, a brain region closely associated with stress reactivity and vulnerability for mood anxiety disorders. These findings suggest the prenatal transmission of vulnerability for depression from mother to child and that interventions targeting maternal depression should begin early in pregnancy.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.