From mother to child: How intergenerational transfer is reflected in similarity of corticolimbic brain structure and mental health.

BACKGROUND: Intergenerational transfer effects include traits transmission from parent to child. While behaviorally well documented, studies on intergenerational transfer effects for brain structure or functioning are scarce, especially those examining relations of behavioral and neurobiological endophenotypes. This study aims to investigate behavioral and neural intergenerational transfer effects associated with the corticolimbic circuitry, relevant for socioemotional functioning and mental well-being. METHODS: T1-neuroimaging and behavioral data was obtained from 72 participants (39 mother-child dyads/ 39 children; 7-13 years; 16 girls/ 33 mothers; 26-52 years). Gray matter volume (GMV) was extracted from corticolimbic regions (subcortical: amygdala, hippocampus, nucleus accumbens; neocortical: anterior cingulate, medial orbitofrontal areas). Mother-child similarity was quantified by correlation coefficients and comparisons to random adult-child pairs. RESULTS: We identified significant corticolimbic mother-child similarity (r = 0.663) stronger for subcortical over neocortical regions. Mother-child similarity in mental well-being was significant (r = 0.409) and the degree of dyadic similarity in mental well-being was predicted by similarity in neocortical, but not subcortical GMV. CONCLUSION: Intergenerational neuroimaging reveals significant mother-child transfer for corticolimbic GMV, most strongly for subcortical regions. However, variations in neocortical similarity predicted similarity in mother-child well-being. Ultimately, such techniques may enhance our knowledge of behavioral and neural familial transfer effects relevant for health and disease.

Prefrontal cortical thickness, emotion regulation strategy use and COVID-19 mental health.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and associated restrictions have been linked to negative mental health outcomes across the globe. Cognitive emotion regulation strategies, neurally supported by prefrontal and limbic regions, constitute means to mitigate negative affects resulting from adverse life experiences. Variations in cognitive emotion regulation strategy use, anxiety, and depression were assessed in 43 adults (31♀/12♂, age = 35.14 ± 9.20 years) during the first months following COVID-19 onset and at the end of 2020 (seven assessments). Direct and indirect effects of emotion regulatory brain structures assessed prior to the pandemic and emotion regulation strategy use during the pandemic were assessed in relation to mental well-being. Varying levels of anxiety and depression were observed. While adaptive emotion regulation strategies were most frequently employed, maladaptive strategies explained the highest variation in anxiety and depression scores. The effectiveness of specific emotion regulation strategies varied. Momentary emotion regulation strategy use mediated the association between cortical thickness in right lateral prefrontal cortex assessed prior to the pandemic and mental health during the pandemic. Early mental health measures impacted later mental well-being. Maladaptive strategies have a negative effect on mental health during prolonged stress as induced by pandemics, providing possible targets for intervention.

Mother-child similarity in brain morphology: A comparison of structural characteristics of the brain's reading network.

BACKGROUND: Substantial evidence acknowledges the complex gene-environment interplay impacting brain development and learning. Intergenerational neuroimaging allows the assessment of familial transfer effects on brain structure, function and behavior by investigating neural similarity in caregiver-child dyads. METHODS: Neural similarity in the human reading network was assessed through well-used measures of brain structure (i.e., surface area (SA), gyrification (lG), sulcal morphology, gray matter volume (GMV) and cortical thickness (CT)) in 69 mother-child dyads (children's age~11 y). Regions of interest for the reading network included left-hemispheric inferior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobe and fusiform gyrus. Mother-child similarity was quantified by correlation coefficients and familial specificity was tested by comparison to random adult-child dyads. Sulcal morphology analyses focused on occipitotemporal sulcus interruptions and similarity was assessed by chi-square goodness of fit. RESULTS: Significant structural brain similarity was observed for mother-child dyads in the reading network for lG, SA and GMV (r = 0.349/0.534/0.542, respectively), but not CT. Sulcal morphology associations were non-significant. Structural brain similarity in lG, SA and GMV were specific to mother-child pairs. Furthermore, structural brain similarity for SA and GMV was higher compared to CT. CONCLUSION: Intergenerational neuroimaging techniques promise to enhance our knowledge of familial transfer effects on brain development and disorders.

Mental well-being during the first months of Covid-19 in adults and children: behavioral evidence and neural precursors.

Pandemics such as the Covid-19 pandemic have shown to impact our physical and mental well-being, with particular challenges for children and families. We describe data from 43 adults (31♀, ages = 22-51; 21 mothers) and 26 children (10♀, ages = 7-17 years) including pre-pandemic brain function and seven assessment points during the first months of the pandemic. We investigated (1) changes in child and adult well-being, (2) mother-child associations of mental well-being, and (3) associations between pre-pandemic brain activation during mentalizing and later fears or burden. In adults the prevalence of clinically significant anxiety-levels was 34.88% and subthreshold depression 32.56%. Caregiver burden in parents was moderately elevated. Overall, scores of depression, anxiety, and caregiver burden decreased across the 11 weeks after Covid-19-onset. Children's behavioral and emotional problems during Covid-19 did not significantly differ from pre-pandemic levels and decreased during restrictions. Mothers' subjective burden of care was associated with children's emotional and behavioral problems, while depression levels in mothers were related to children's mood. Furthermore, meeting friends was a significant predictor of children's mood during early restrictions. Pre-pandemic neural correlates of mentalizing in prefrontal regions preceded later development of fear of illnesses and viruses in all participants, while temporoparietal activation preceded higher subjective burden in mothers.

Neurodevelopment of the incentive network facilitates motivated behaviour from adolescence to adulthood.

The ability to enhance motivated performance through incentives is crucial to guide and ultimately optimise the outcome of goal-directed behaviour. It remains largely unclear how motivated behaviour and performance develops particularly across adolescence. Here, we used computational fMRI to assess how response speed and its underlying neural circuitry are modulated by reward and loss in a monetary incentive delay paradigm. We demonstrate that maturational fine-tuning of functional coupling within the cortico-striatal incentive circuitry from adolescence to adulthood facilitates the ability to enhance performance selectively for higher subjective values. Additionally, during feedback, we found developmental sex differences of striatal representations of reward prediction errors in an exploratory analysis. Our findings suggest that a reduced capacity to utilise subjective value for motivated behaviour in adolescence is rooted in immature information processing in the incentive system. This indicates that the neurocircuitry for coordination of incentivised, motivated cognitive control acts as a bottleneck for behavioural adjustments in adolescence.