It is now well established that the children of depressed mothers are at increased risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. The present proposal, the second of the two clinical projects on the CCNMD proposal, takes advantage of these previous clinical observations and scrutinizes the children of mothers who suffer depression during pregnancy or in the puerpurium. We propose to conduct the first longitudinal study of children whose mothers experienced at least one episode of major depression prior to pregnancy, thus placing the children at risk for exposure to depression in pregnancy or during the postpartum period. We propose to obtain behavioral, neurophysiological, neuroendocrine, and neuroimaging measures. Specifically we will test whether fetal exposure to maternal neuroendocrine dysregulation associated with depression, e.g., elevated cortisol, alters infant behavioral and/or endocrine responsiveness. Maternal blood samples will be obtained throughout pregnancy and maternal and umbilical cord blood will be obtained at birth. Subsequent infant measures including salivary cortisol, EEG, heart rate variability, as well as measures of maternal-infant interaction will permit us to test the potential contribution of maternal depressed affect on infant development. The data collected will allow for testing of hypotheses related to maternal depression during pregnancy as an early prenatal stressor and depression postpartum as a neonatal stressor with the resultant novel data on critical periods, severity of maternal depression and its impact on the fetus, as well as the role of genetic factors (family history and genetic analyses). In addition, potential ethnic differences between African-Americans and European Americans will be assessed. Taken together, this study will provide novel behavioral and neuroendocrinological information of the impact of maternal depression in children from birth to one year of age. This project is complementary to the other clinical project (Project 7) on the effects of early life stress on psychiatric and HPA function in adult women, has specific links to the basic science aspects of the proposed Center- through Project 2 and the Functional Brain Imaging Core, and utilizes multiple resources available in the CCNMD.
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