ArticleJournal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry2023
Intergenerational Transmission of Maternal Childhood Maltreatment Prior to Birth: Effects on Human Fetal Amygdala Functional Connectivity.
Article in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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
15 citing papers in PubMed, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Functional brain connectivity from the fetal period through infancy: A narrative review of resting-state fMRI studies.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2026Review
- Maternal Childhood Neglect is Linked to Greater Infant Cortisol Levels and Larger Infant Limbic Volumes.Child maltreatment · 2026Article
- The Impact of Childhood Trauma on Neuropsychological Disorders and Its Intergenerational Transmission Mechanisms.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Maternal Childhood Maltreatment, Development of Amygdala Volume, and Anxiety Symptoms in Offspring.Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2026Article
- Emotional Brain Development: Neurobiological Indicators from Fetus Through Toddlerhood.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Weaving Invisible Threads: The Impact of Caregiver Trauma on Parenting and Child Brain Development.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Toward a multi-level approach to the study of the intergenerational transmission of trauma: Current findings and future directions.Development and psychopathology · 2024Review
- Prenatal Stress and Maternal Role in Neurodevelopment.Annual review of developmental psychology · 2024Article
- Advances in fetal and neonatal neuroimaging and everyday exposures.Pediatric research · 2024Review
- Prenatal Social Determinants of Health: Narrative review of maternal environments and neonatal brain development.Pediatric research · 2024Review
- Maternal prenatal social disadvantage and neonatal functional connectivity: Associations with psychopathology symptoms at age 12 months.Developmental psychology · 2024Article
- Trajectories of brain and behaviour development in the womb, at birth and through infancy.Nature human behaviour · 2024Review
- [Research progress on the mechanism of the impact of maternal childhood trauma on intergenerational transmission].Zhongguo dang dai er ke za zhi = Chinese journal of contemporary pediatrics · 2024Article
- Through a Developmental Lens: Emerging Insights to Understand and Treat Pediatric PTSD.The American journal of psychiatry · 2023Review
- Systematic review and meta-analysis of MRI-based sex differences in the human fetal brain.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveChildhood maltreatment (CM) is a potent risk factor for developing psychopathology later in life. Accumulating research suggests that the influence is not limited to the exposed individual but may also be transmitted across generations. In this study, we examine the effect of CM in pregnant women on fetal amygdala-cortical function, prior to postnatal influences.
methodHealthy pregnant women (N = 89) completed fetal resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) scans between the late second trimester and birth. Women were primarily from low socioeconomic status households with relatively high CM. Mothers completed questionnaires prospectively evaluating prenatal psychosocial health and retrospectively evaluating trauma from their own childhood. Voxelwise functional connectivity was calculated from bilateral amygdala masks.
resultsConnectivity of the amygdala network was relatively higher to left frontal areas (prefrontal cortex and premotor) and relatively lower to right premotor area and brainstem areas in fetuses of mothers exposed to higher CM. These associations persisted after controlling for maternal socioeconomic status, maternal prenatal distress, measures of fetal motion, and gestational age at the time of scan and at birth.
conclusionPregnant women's experiences of CM are associated with offspring brain development in utero. The strongest effects were found in the left hemisphere, potentially indicating lateralization of the effects of maternal CM on the fetal brain. This study suggests that the time frame of the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease research should be extended to exposures from mothers' childhood, and indicates that the intergenerational transmission of trauma may occur prior to birth.
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.