ArticleJournal of affective disorders2021
Prenatal and postnatal depressive symptoms, infant white matter, and toddler behavioral problems.
Article in Journal of affective disorders, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prenatal psychological distress and neurodevelopmental trajectories in the first 3 years: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2025Pooled it
- Postnatal distress, neonatal cerebellar myelination and neurodevelopmental outcomes at 18 months.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Associations among white matter microstructural changes and the development of emotional reactivity and regulation in infancy.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Maternal-prenatal stress and depression predict infant temperament during the COVID-19 pandemic.Development and psychopathology · 2024Article
- Neural Network Functional Interactions Mediate or Suppress White Matter-Emotional Behavior Relationships in Infants.Biological psychiatry · 2023Article
- Assessing the risk of prenatal depressive symptoms in Chinese women: an integrated evaluation of serum metabolome, multivitamin supplement intake, and clinical blood indicators.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
- Article
- Prenatal Maternal Distress During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Associations With Infant Brain Connectivity.Biological psychiatry · 2022Article
- Article
- Maternal psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic and structural changes of the human fetal brain.Communications medicine · 2022Article
- Exposure to prenatal maternal distress and infant white matter neurodevelopment.Development and psychopathology · 2021Article
- Perinatal Mental Health during COVID-19 Pandemic: An Integrative Review and Implications for Clinical Practice.Journal of clinical medicine · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMaternal depression is prevalent during and following pregnancy and is related to adverse outcomes in offspring. Perinatal depression is associated with risk for difficulties in offspring; however, the mechanisms underlying this association are not clear. We examined whether maternal prenatal and postnatal depressive symptoms were associated with infant white matter organization and with behavioral problems in toddlerhood.
methods37 mother-infant dyads (20 male; ages 5.95-7.66 months) participated in this study. We conducted diffusion MRI with infants during natural sleep. Mothers reported on their prenatal and postnatal depressive symptoms at six months postpartum. We calculated fractional anisotropy (FA), radial, axial, and mean diffusivity, and assessed offspring behavioral problems at age 18 months.
resultsPrenatal depressive symptoms were associated with FA of the corpus callosum; postnatal depressive symptoms were not associated with FA of limbic tracts or corpus callosum segmentations. Higher levels of prenatal depressive symptoms were associated with higher FA and lower radial diffusivity of the corpus callosum genu; FA of this region was positively associated with behavioral problems at age 18 months. LIMITATIONS: This study had a small sample size; therefore, findings should be replicated. Further, we used retrospective reports of maternal prenatal depression, but validated them in this study.
conclusionsDepressive symptoms during pregnancy may affect infant corpus callosum development and, in turn, offspring behaviors. These findings suggest that early maternal stress accelerates infant neurodevelopment in a manner that may increase risk for behavioral problems. Thus, efforts to reduce maternal prenatal depression should be a public health priority.
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