This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing theresources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject andinvestigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source,and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed isfor the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator.The weeks that follow childbirth are often a time of heightened psychic vulnerability. In fact, mood and behavioral symptoms during the perinatal period reportedly effect up to 85 percent of all new mothers.1With an insidious onset usually between 3 and 14 days (and reportedly up to 3 months)2 postpartum symptoms of anxiety, exhaustion, alternating mood, and an inability to concentrate are usually short lived. However, up to 15% of these women will go on to develop a more severe mood disorder (PPMD) characterized by rapid mood swings, panic attacks, severe anxiety, extreme fatigue, incoherent and irrational thought, obsessive-compulsiveness, and ideation of harm to the self or that of the baby.3 Notably, PPMD's result in suicide rate of up to five percent, and infanticide rates of nearly four percent.4Because untreated mood disorders place the mother at risk for recurrent disease and maternal depression is associated with long-term cognitive, emotional, and behavioral problems in the child5, characterizing the clinical features of PPMDs is important for early diagnosis and intervention.Hypothesis: Using both behavioral and functional neuroimaging techniques (fMRI), we hypothesize that patients with postpartum mood disorders, relative to normal controls, will demonstrate (1) greater neural activation and structural differences in hippocampus, amygdala, and paralimbic regions, (2) greater physiologic and neural response to emotionally valenced stimuli, and (3) greater negativity in emotionally valenced ratings of stimuli.
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