Objective:

The authors examined associations of exposure to maternal depressive symptoms at different developmental stages from fetal life to preadolescence with child brain development, including volumetrics and white matter microstructure.

Methods:

This study was embedded in a longitudinal birth cohort in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Participants were 3,469 mother-child pairs with data on maternal depressive symptoms and child neuroimaging at age 10. The authors also measured child emotional and behavioral problems at the time of neuroimaging. The association of maternal depressive symptoms with child brain development at each assessment was examined. Maternal depressive symptom trajectories were modeled across fetal life and childhood to determine the association of maternal depressive symptom patterns over time with child brain development.

Results:

The single-time-point analyses showed that maternal depressive symptoms at child age 2 months were associated with smaller total gray matter volume and lower global fractional anisotropy (FA), whereas maternal depressive symptoms assessed prenatally or in childhood were not. The trajectory analyses suggested in particular that children exposed to persistently high levels of maternal depressive symptoms across the perinatal period had smaller gray and white matter volumes as well as alterations (i.e., lower FA) in white matter microstructure compared with nonexposed children. Furthermore, the gray matter volume differences mediated the association between postnatal maternal depressive symptoms and child attention problems.

Conclusions:

Perinatal maternal depressive symptoms were consistently associated with child brain development assessed 10 years later. These results suggest that the postnatal period is a window of vulnerability for adversities such as maternal depressive symptoms.

中文翻译：

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胎儿生命或童年以及母亲后代大脑发育中母体抑郁症状的暴露：基于人群的影像学研究

客观的：

作者研究了从胎儿生命到青春期前不同发育阶段暴露于母体抑郁症状与儿童大脑发育的关系，包括体积和白质微观结构。

方法：

这项研究被纳入荷兰鹿特丹的纵向出生队列。参加者为3,469对母子，并提供了10岁时母亲抑郁症状和儿童神经影像学的数据。作者还测量了儿童在进行神经影像学时的情绪和行为问题。在每次评估中，检查了母体抑郁症状与儿童大脑发育的关系。对整个胎儿生命和童年时期的母亲抑郁症状轨迹进行建模，以确定随着时间的推移，母亲抑郁症状模式与儿童大脑发育的关系。

结果：

单时间点分析显示，在2个月大的儿童中，母亲的抑郁症状与较小的总灰质量和较低的整体分数各向异性（FA）有关，而与产前或儿童期评估的母亲抑郁症状无关。轨迹分析特别表明，与未暴露的儿童相比，在围产期期间持续暴露于高水平的母亲抑郁症状的儿童具有较小的灰色和白色物质体积以及白色物质微观结构的改变（即，较低的FA）。此外，灰质体积的差异介导了产后产妇抑郁症状与儿童注意问题之间的联系。

结论：

围产期母亲的抑郁症状与10年后评估的儿童大脑发育始终相关。这些结果表明，产后时期是诸如母体抑郁症状之类的逆境的脆弱窗口。