Exposure to maternal anxiety symptoms during infancy has been associated with difficulties in development and greater risk for developing anxiety later in life. Although previous studies have examined associations between prenatal maternal distress, infant brain development, and developmental outcomes, it is still largely unclear if there are associations between postnatal anxiety, infant brain development, and cognitive development in infancy. In this study, we used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the association between maternal anxiety symptoms and resting-state functional connectivity in the first year of life. We also examine the association between frontolimbic functional connectivity and infant cognitive development. The sample consisted of 21 infants (mean age = 24.15 months, SD = 4.17) that were scanned during their natural sleep using. We test the associations between maternal trait anxiety symptoms and amygdala–anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) functional connectivity, a neural circuit implicated in early life stress exposure. We also test the associations between amygdala–ACC connectivity and cognitive development. We found a significant negative association between maternal trait anxiety symptoms and left amygdala–right ACC functional connectivity (p < .05, false discovery rate corrected). We found a significant negative association between left amygdala–right ACC functional connectivity and infant cognitive development (p < .05). These findings have potential implications for understanding the role of postpartum maternal anxiety symptoms in functional brain and cognitive development in infancy.

中文翻译：

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母亲特质焦虑症状、额叶静息状态功能连接和婴儿期认知发展

在婴儿期暴露于母亲焦虑症状与发育困难和晚年患焦虑症的风险增加有关。尽管之前的研究已经检查了产前母亲痛苦、婴儿大脑发育和发育结果之间的关联，但仍不清楚产后焦虑、婴儿大脑发育和婴儿期认知发育之间是否存在关联。在这项研究中，我们使用静息状态功能磁共振成像来检查母亲焦虑症状与生命第一年静息状态功能连接之间的关联。我们还研究了额叶功能连接与婴儿认知发展之间的关联。样本由 21 名婴儿组成（平均年龄 = 24.15 个月，SD = 4。17) 在他们自然睡眠期间使用的扫描仪。我们测试了母亲特质焦虑症状与杏仁核 - 前扣带皮层 (ACC) 功能连接之间的关联，这是一种与早期生活压力暴露有关的神经回路。我们还测试了杏仁核-ACC 连通性与认知发展之间的关联。我们发现母亲特质焦虑症状与左杏仁核-右 ACC 功能连接之间存在显着负相关。p  < .05，纠正错误发现率）。我们发现左侧杏仁核-右侧 ACC 功能连接与婴儿认知发育之间存在显着负相关 ( p  < .05)。这些发现对于理解产后母亲焦虑症状在婴儿期功能性大脑和认知发展中的作用具有潜在意义。