Prenatal Neurophysiology During Emotion Regulation As A Predictor Of Parental Sensitivity In First-Time Mothers

Research suggests that emotion regulation, which is defined as the capacity to influence one’s experience and expression of emotion, is associated with parental sensitivity and caregiving behaviors. These are both predictors of healthy infant development.

Although general emotion regulation as a predictor of parenting behaviors is well studied, less is known about whether caregiving is impacted by emotion regulation when under acute stress. This key distinction is critical for understanding both the predictors of poor parenting behaviors as well as developing strategic interventions for high-risk mothers. Further, although a number of studies have examined the neurobiology of maternal sensitivity by looking at a mother’s brain activity during emotional stimuli (e. g. , auditory cues of children crying, pictures of children in distress), few studies have parsed apart maternal sensitivity during high and low stress. The proposed study endeavors to fill this void and the discussed gaps in literature by assessing behavioral and neurophysiological responses to an emotion regulation task during pregnancy as a predictor of parental sensitivity at three months postpartum.

Proposed study overview

The woman participating in the proposed study (anticipated n = 50) will be recruited from the ongoing Vanderbilt University BABIES study, currently funded by an R01 awarded to Dr. Kathryn Humphreys, my graduate research mentor. First-time mothers are recruited from a community sample of women in the greater Nashville area. Partnerships will be made with a local community health center to recruit a diverse, representative sample of women expecting a singleton birth. The study will consist of two study sessions. The first session will be between their first and second trimester (between the 12 and 24 weeks gestation). The second session will consist of a family visit when the infant is approximately three months old.

Behavioral Paradigm

During the first visit, participants will complete a computerized affect-matching task. There will be four runs each with 80 trials in which either infant faces or shapes will be presented. Three images will be presented in each trial. One image will be presented on the top of the screen and two images will be presented below it. The participant will be instructed to select the bottom left or right image that matches the top image as quickly as possible using a computer keyboard. Face shapes will include images of infants that are happy, distressed or neutral. The shape trials will include squares, circles, and triangles. Two of the runs will include intermittent sounds of an infant crying (approximately three months old) presented to the participant via headphones. EEG Acquisition: During the visit, continuous EEG recordings will be acquired using a 64-channel net from Brain Products LCC.

EEG Processing

EEG data will be sampled at 250 Hz (referenced to Cz) and electrode impedances will be kept below 25 k Ω. An independent component analysis (ICA) will be performed to identify and correct for vertical and horizontal eye movement artifacts. In addition, EEG channels with a high number of channel-specific artifacts will be removed and interpolated. All EEG data processing will be conducted in Brain Vision Analyzer.

The present study will focus on the late positive potential (LPP) component, a component that is functionally significant for emotion-related stimuli, in a time window of 400 – 700 ms after stimulus presentation.

Parental Sensitivity

At the three-month family follow up visit, maternal sensitivity will be coded based on the NICHD’s Observational Record of Caregiving Environment, a widely used instrument that contains global rating for parent sensitivity. We predict that mothers with smaller difference waves will have greater postnatal parental sensitivity.

Investigating a women’s prenatal emotional regulation capacity during stressful circumstances can help shed light on early identification of those at highest risk of poor caregiving. This is essential to understand which mothers need the most support and which types of treatment they would benefit from. Our sample of first-time mothers will allow me to eliminate the potential confounds of previous parenting experience, which could give a mother more practice for parental sensitivity. Moreover, this is the first study to assess the predictive use of prenatal neurophysiological correlates during pregnancy for parental sensitivity.

Given the vast impact that parents have on child development, measuring emotion regulation difficulties prior to parenting may contribute to efforts to improve parental caregiving and could have major effects on the trajectory of a child’s development. By understanding the relationship between emotional regulation under stress and parental sensitivity, we can potentially identify and provide support for parents who would benefit from parenting education and stress management skills as early as pregnancy. A next step in my research with Dr. Humphreys is to assess how a parenting intervention during pregnancy could potentially alter the behavioral and neurophysiological correlates associated with emotion regulation under stressful circumstances.

The findings from the proposed study are a first step in identifying parents who could benefit from additional support as they transition to parenthood, ultimately impacting the development of children in our society.