ArticleScientific reports2019
Predictions of children's emotionality from evolutionary and epigenetic hypotheses.
Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prenatal stress and externalizing behaviors in childhood and adolescence: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychological bulletin · 2024Pooled it
- Investigating sex differences in developmental origins of adolescent depression.Frontiers in child and adolescent psychiatry · 2025Article
- Epigenetics of prenatal stress in humans: the current research landscape.Clinical epigenetics · 2024Review
- An examination of behavioural and emotional problems in children exposed prenatally to the 27F Chilean earthquake: findings from the ELPI cohort.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2023Article
- Child DNA methylation in a randomised controlled trial of a video-feedback intervention to promote positive parenting and sensitive discipline (VIPP-SD).Frontiers in child and adolescent psychiatry · 2023Article
- Maternal and paternal depression and child mental health trajectories: evidence from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.BJPsych open · 2021Article
- Sex differences in foetal origins of child emotional symptoms: a test of evolutionary hypotheses in a large, general population cohort.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2020Article
- Epigenetic Mechanisms in the Neurodevelopmental Theory of Depression.Depression research and treatment · 2020Review
- Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Sex-dependent effects of mismatched prenatal-postnatal maternal conditions are predicted by combining two evolutionary hypotheses: that foetal conditions provide a forecast of likely postnatal environments (Predictive Adaptive Response), and that the female foetus is better adapted than the male to maternal adversity (Trivers-Willard hypothesis). Animal studies have implicated glucocorticoid mechanisms modifiable by effects of postnatal tactile stimulation on glucocorticoid receptor gene expression. In this study we examined behavioural predictions in humans based on these evolutionary and epigenetic models. Mothers in a general population cohort provided self-reported anxiety scores at 20 weeks pregnancy, and at 9 weeks, 14 months and 3.5 years postpartum, and frequency of infant stroking at 9 weeks. Mothers and teachers reported child symptoms at 7 years. SEM models with maximum-likelihood estimates made use of data from 887 participants. There was a three-way interaction between prenatal and postnatal anxiety and maternal stroking in the prediction of irritability, seen only in girls. This arose because lower maternal stroking was associated with higher irritability, only in the mismatched, low-high and high-low maternal anxiety groups. We provide evidence that mechanisms likely to have evolved well before the emergence of humans, contribute to the development of children's emotionality and risk for depression.
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