Parental responses to their children are crucially influenced by stress. However, brain-based mechanistic understanding of the adverse effects of parenting stress and benefits of therapeutic interventions is lacking. We studied maternal brain responses to salient child signals as a function of Mom Power (MP), an attachment-based parenting intervention established to decrease maternal distress. Twenty-nine mothers underwent two functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scans during a baby-cry task designed to solicit maternal responses to child's or self's distress signals. Between scans, mothers were pseudorandomly assigned to either MP (n = 14) or control (n = 15) with groups balanced for depression. Compared to control, MP decreased parenting stress and increased child-focused responses in social brain areas highlighted by the precuneus and its functional connectivity with subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, which are key components of reflective self-awareness and decision-making neurocircuitry. Furthermore, over 13 weeks, reduction in parenting stress was related to increasing child- versus self-focused baby-cry responses in amygdala–temporal pole functional connectivity, which may mediate maternal ability to take her child's perspective. Although replication in larger samples is needed, the results of this first parental-brain intervention study demonstrate robust stress-related brain circuits for maternal care that can be modulated by psychotherapy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:etsu-works-1718 |
| Date | 01 May 2017 |
| Creators | Swain, James E, Ho, S. Shaun, Rosenblum, Katherine L., Morelen, Diana M., Dayton, Carolyn J., Muzik, Maria |
| Publisher | Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University |
| Source Sets | East Tennessee State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | ETSU Faculty Works |
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