ArticleBiological psychology2021
The rewards of motherhood: Neural response to reward in pregnancy prospectively predicts maternal bonding with the infant in the postpartum period.
Article in Biological psychology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Associations Between New Mothers' Neural Reward Response and Perceptions of Their Own Infant.Developmental psychobiology · 2026Article
- Fetal attachment and infant temperament: The mediating role of perinatal mental health.Journal of affective disorders · 2026Article
- Intuitive eating, maternal attachment, and weight status in postpartum women: a cross-sectional study.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Article
- Social reward responsiveness as a moderator of the association between perceived bonding with infants and depressive symptoms in postpartum women.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- Hormonal and structural transformations in the caregiver's brain: Examining themes in parental neurobiology.AIMS neuroscience · 2025Review
- Antenatal anxiety symptoms outperform antenatal depression symptoms and suicidal ideation as a risk factor for postpartum suicidal ideation.Anxiety, stress, and coping · 2024Article
- Potential mechanisms and modulators of food intake during pregnancy.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Review
- Letter to the Editor: Response to "A common neural correlate for affective and monetary reward".Biological psychology · 2022Article
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4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
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Abstract
Mother-to-infant attachment is critical to the health of mothers and offspring. While reward circuitry is implicated in maternal attachment, no studies have yet examined whether antenatal (i.e., in pregnancy) reward responsiveness predicts mother-to-infant bonding in the postnatal period. In a sample of 63 women, we examined whether the Reward Positivity (RewP), an event-related potential elicited to feedback indicating monetary reward, measured in pregnancy prospectively predicts self-reported mother-to-infant attachment at approximately one year postpartum. An increased antenatal RewP was associated with increased postnatal pleasure in proximity with the infant. Furthermore, this association was independent of associations with depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. This is the first study to find a prospective association between reward responsiveness in pregnancy and postnatal bonding with the infant. Future directions for attachment research are discussed.
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