ArticleFrontiers in behavioral neuroscience2019
Maternal Pregnancy-Related Anxiety Is Associated With Sexually Dimorphic Alterations in Amygdala Volume in 4-Year-Old Children.
Article in Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 84 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prenatal stress and externalizing behaviors in childhood and adolescence: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychological bulletin · 2024Pooled it
- Measurement of pregnancy-related anxiety worldwide: a systematic review.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2022Pooled it
- Neonatal amygdala microstructure and structural connectivity are associated with autistic traits at 2 years of age.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2026Article
- Prenatal parental mental health and neurodevelopment in children with congenital heart disease.Pediatric research · 2026Review
- Adaptive Skills May Moderate the Association between Prenatal Stress Exposure and Limbic Brain Activation: A Developmental Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of Superstorm Sandy Exposure.Developmental neuroscience · 2026Article
- Maternal Childhood Maltreatment, Development of Amygdala Volume, and Anxiety Symptoms in Offspring.Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2026Article
- The mediating role of pregnancy-related anxiety between fetal movement self-monitoring adherence and maternal-fetal attachment in the third trimester.Frontiers in global women's health · 2026Article
- Article
- The association between prenatal maternal anxiety, infant brain volumes, and temperament during the COVID-19 pandemic.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Maternal depressive symptoms in childhood and offspring brain cortical and subcortical volumetric change: A repeated imaging study from age 4-10 years.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2025Article
- Maternal depression during the perinatal period and its relationship with emotion regulation in young adulthood: An fMRI study in a prenatal birth cohort.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- Immune Alterations in the Intrauterine Environment Shape Offspring Brain Development in a Sex-Specific Manner.Biological psychiatry · 2025Review
- Behavioral moderators ofFrontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Resilience to stress during pregnancy: Biopsychosocial mechanisms and implications for offspring emotional and behavioral outcomes in toddlerhood.Developmental psychology · 2024Article
- Brain structural and functional outcomes in the offspring of women experiencing psychological distress during pregnancy.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Review
- The Related Role of Anxiety and Parental Resilience on the Aggressive Tendencies of Preschool Children during the COVID-19 Pandemic.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Maternal-prenatal stress and depression predict infant temperament during the COVID-19 pandemic.Development and psychopathology · 2024Article
- Maternal anxiety during pregnancy predicts infant attention to affective faces.Journal of affective disorders · 2024Article
- Maternal anxiety during pregnancy is associated with weaker prefrontal functional connectivity in adult offspring.Brain imaging and behavior · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Prenatal stress is associated with child behavioral outcomes increasing susceptibility for psychiatric disorders in later life. Altered fetal brain development might partly mediate this association, as some studies suggest. With this study, we investigated the relation between prenatal stress, child's brain structure and behavioral problems. The association between self-reported maternal pregnancy-related anxiety (PRAQ-R2 questionnaire, second and third trimester) and brain gray matter volume was probed in 27 4-year-old children (13 female). Voxel based morphometry was applied with an age-matched template in SPM for the whole-brain analyses, and amygdala volume was assessed with manual segmentation. Possible pre- and postnatal confounders, such as maternal depression and anxiety among others, were controlled for. Child behavioral problems were assessed with the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire by maternal report. We found a significant interaction effect of pregnancy-related anxiety and child's sex on child's amygdala volume, i.e., higher pregnancy-related anxiety in the second trimester was related to significantly greater left relative amygdala volume in girls compared to boys. Further exploratory analyses yielded that both maternal pregnancy-related anxiety and child's amygdala volume are related to child emotional and behavioral difficulties: While higher pregnancy-related anxiety was associated with more emotional symptoms, peer relationship problems and overall child difficulties, greater left amygdala volume was related to less of these child difficulties and might partly mediate sex-specific associations between pregnancy-related anxiety and child behavioral difficulties. Our data suggest that maternal prenatal distress leads to sexually dimorphic structural changes in the offspring's limbic system and that these changes are also linked to behavioral difficulties. Our results provide further support for the notion that prenatal stress impacts child development.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.