ReviewMolecular psychiatry2024
Brain structural and functional outcomes in the offspring of women experiencing psychological distress during pregnancy.
Review in Molecular psychiatry, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 72 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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
72 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 88 citations in OpenAlex.
- Systematic Review: Antipsychotic Medication in Pregnancy and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes in Children.Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- The influence of attachment and relational quality on developmental outcomes across the lifespan: a systematic review and meta-analytic insights (2014-2024).Frontiers in psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Comparison of the effects of haptonomy application and mindfulness-based stress reduction on psychological well-being, perceived stress, and fear of childbirth in primiparous women: a randomized controlled trial.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2026Trial
- Prenatal exposure to hypertensive disorders and adolescent brain white matter development.Pediatric research · 2026Article
- Prenatal serotonin reuptake inhibitor exposure and maternal depression symptoms are associated with altered fetal brain and placental development.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Observational
- Postnatal distress, neonatal cerebellar myelination and neurodevelopmental outcomes at 18 months.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Maternal Social Support Reshapes the Offspring Brain Transcriptome to Buffer Prenatal Stress in Mice.Research square · 2026Article
- Association of prenatal depression and anxiety with cortical development and behavioral outcomes in 8-year-old children.Journal of affective disorders · 2026Article
- Multilevel sex-influenced neurobiological signatures of early life adversity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Dynamic neuro-immune regulation of psychiatric risk loci in human neurons.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Breaking the cycle: a review of the impacts of maternal PTSD, adverse pregnancy outcomes, and health disparities among Black women.Maternal health, neonatology and perinatology · 2026Review
- Maternal Stress During Pregnancy Induces Higher Anxiety-Like Behavior in Male Mice Offspring Under Acute Stress by Upregulating CRF/CRFR1 and Driving Time-Specific Activation of the MHb-IPN Circuit.Neuroscience bulletin · 2026Article
- Brain metabolite changes in neonates of mothers with SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy: a case-control study.Pediatric radiology · 2026Article
- Maternal serum from 'high-stress' pregnancies demonstrates bioactivity capable of attenuating neurite growth through a TNFα-dependent pathway in SH-SY5Y cells.Bioscience reports · 2026Article
- From Adaptive Resilience to Catastrophic Systems Collapse: Endothelial Entropy, Ferroptotic Propagation, and the Maternal Point of No Return in Emergency Peripartum Hysterectomy.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Adolescent ΔPharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Prenatal stress, excitatory-inhibitory imbalance, and ADHD risk: a hypothesis-driven perspective on psilocybin-induced neuroplasticity.Translational psychiatry · 2026Review
- Parental Perspectives on Prenatal Counseling and Communication at the Time of Initial Evaluation and Diagnosis of Congenital Heart Disease.American journal of perinatology · 2026Article
- Sexual aggression and prenatal stress lead to poor maternal care and aggressive behaviour in male Wistar rat offspring.IBRO neuroscience reports · 2026Article
- Early life adversity, oxytocin system alterations, and addiction vulnerability: a narrative review.Psychopharmacology · 2026Review
12 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In-utero exposure to maternal psychological distress is increasingly linked with disrupted fetal and neonatal brain development and long-term neurobehavioral dysfunction in children and adults. Elevated maternal psychological distress is associated with changes in fetal brain structure and function, including reduced hippocampal and cerebellar volumes, increased cerebral cortical gyrification and sulcal depth, decreased brain metabolites (e.g., choline and creatine levels), and disrupted functional connectivity. After birth, reduced cerebral and cerebellar gray matter volumes, increased cerebral cortical gyrification, altered amygdala and hippocampal volumes, and disturbed brain microstructure and functional connectivity have been reported in the offspring months or even years after exposure to maternal distress during pregnancy. Additionally, adverse child neurodevelopment outcomes such as cognitive, language, learning, memory, social-emotional problems, and neuropsychiatric dysfunction are being increasingly reported after prenatal exposure to maternal distress. The mechanisms by which prenatal maternal psychological distress influences early brain development include but are not limited to impaired placental function, disrupted fetal epigenetic regulation, altered microbiome and inflammation, dysregulated hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, altered distribution of the fetal cardiac output to the brain, and disrupted maternal sleep and appetite. This review will appraise the available literature on the brain structural and functional outcomes and neurodevelopmental outcomes in the offspring of pregnant women experiencing elevated psychological distress. In addition, it will also provide an overview of the mechanistic underpinnings of brain development changes in stress response and discuss current treatments for elevated maternal psychological distress, including pharmacotherapy (e.g., selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and non-pharmacotherapy (e.g., cognitive-behavior therapy). Finally, it will end with a consideration of future directions in the field.
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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.