Faster pace of hippocampal growth mediates the association between perinatal adversity and childhood depression.

Early life adversity has been posited to influence the pace of structural neurodevelopment. Most research, however, has relied on cross-sectional data, which do not reveal whether the pace of neurodevelopmental change is accelerated or slowed following early exposures. In a birth cohort study that included neuroimaging data obtained at 4.5, 6, and 7.5 years of age (N = 784), we examined associations among a cumulative measure of perinatal adversity relative to resources, nonlinear trajectories of hippocampal and amygdala volume, and children's subsequent depressive symptoms at 8.5 years of age. Greater adversity was associated with reduced bilateral hippocampal body volume in early childhood, but also to faster growth in the right hippocampal body across childhood. Further, the association between adversity and childhood depressive symptoms was mediated by faster hippocampal body growth. These findings suggest that perinatal adversity is biologically embedded in hippocampal structure development, including an accelerated pace of change in the right hippocampal body that is implicated in children's psychopathology risk. In addition, our findings suggest that reduced hippocampal volume is not inconsistent with accelerated hippocampal change; these aspects of structural development may typically co-occur, as smaller regional volumes in early childhood were associated with faster growth across childhood.

Large-scale proteomics in the first trimester of pregnancy predict psychopathology and temperament in preschool children: an exploratory study.

BACKGROUND: Understanding the prenatal origins of children's psychopathology is a fundamental goal in developmental and clinical science. Recent research suggests that inflammation during pregnancy can trigger a cascade of fetal programming changes that contribute to vulnerability for the emergence of psychopathology. Most studies, however, have focused on a handful of proinflammatory cytokines and have not explored a range of prenatal biological pathways that may be involved in increasing postnatal risk for emotional and behavioral difficulties. METHODS: Using extreme gradient boosted machine learning models, we explored large-scale proteomics, considering over 1,000 proteins from first trimester blood samples, to predict behavior in early childhood. Mothers reported on their 3- to 5-year-old children's (N = 89, 51% female) temperament (Child Behavior Questionnaire) and psychopathology (Child Behavior Checklist). RESULTS: We found that machine learning models of prenatal proteomics predict 5%-10% of the variance in children's sadness, perceptual sensitivity, attention problems, and emotional reactivity. Enrichment analyses identified immune function, nervous system development, and cell signaling pathways as being particularly important in predicting children's outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings, though exploratory, suggest processes in early pregnancy that are related to functioning in early childhood. Predictive features included far more proteins than have been considered in prior work. Specifically, proteins implicated in inflammation, in the development of the central nervous system, and in key cell-signaling pathways were enriched in relation to child temperament and psychopathology measures.

Exploring sex differences in trajectories of pubertal development and mental health following early adversity.

Despite evidence that early life adversity (ELA) affects mental health in adolescence, we know little about sex differences in how distinct dimensions of adversity affect development and their corresponding effects on mental health. In this three-wave longitudinal study, 209 participants (118 females; ages 9-13 years at baseline) provided objective (salivary hormones, BMI, age of menarche) and subjective (perceived gonadal and adrenal status) measures of puberty and physical development, and reported on levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms at all timepoints. Participants also reported lifetime exposure to three distinct types of ELA: deprivation, threat, and unpredictability. Using generalized additive mixed models, we tested within each sex whether dimensions of adversity were associated with longitudinal changes in measures of pubertal and physical development, and whether these indices of development were associated with trajectories of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. In females, experiences of threat and unpredictability were significantly associated with earlier pubertal timing (e.g., age of menarche) whereas experiences of deprivation were associated with steeper increases in BMI; further, faster pubertal tempo (i.e., steeper increases in pubertal stage) was associated with increases in internalizing and externalizing symptoms. In males, however, ELA was not associated with any measures of pubertal or physical development or with symptoms. Together, our results suggest that adverse experiences during early life have sex-selective consequences for pubertal and physical maturation and mental health trajectories in ways that may elucidate why females are at higher risk for mental health difficulties during puberty, particularly following exposure to unpredictable and threatening experiences of adversity.

A network analysis of psychopathology in young Black children: Implications for predicting outcomes in adolescence.

OBJECTIVE: Network analysis may identify specific symptoms involved in the maintenance and development of psychopathology. This approach, however, has not been applied to the study of young Black children, a population facing unique challenges and developmental risks. It is also unclear whether network analysis identifies early symptoms in Black children that are linked to their longer-term difficulties and strengths in adolescence. METHODS: We conducted a network analysis of emotional and behavioral difficulties in 1238 Black (non-Hispanic) children from the age-3 assessment in the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (47 % female). We also explored whether early childhood symptoms predict subsequent caregiver-reported internalizing and externalizing problems, and youth-reported social competencies and extracurricular and community involvement, at the age-15 assessment. RESULTS: We identified specific symptoms of externalizing and emotional reactivity as central in the network. Symptoms of emotional reactivity were also involved in comorbidity, bridging different communities of symptoms. Using elastic net models, we identified specific central and bridge symptoms, but also peripheral network symptoms, that contributed uniquely to the prediction of internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescence. Early childhood symptoms were less predictive of positive outcomes in adolescence. CONCLUSIONS: This study identified central and bridge symptoms in young Black children, an underrepresented population in network analysis research. Some of these central and bridge symptoms, but also peripheral network symptoms, may be useful targets in early interventions to prevent long-term difficulties. Conversely, network approaches to understanding early psychopathology may have less utility for predicting Black children's subsequent strengths in adolescence.

Neighborhood Socioeconomic Disadvantage and White Matter Microstructure of the Arcuate Fasciculus and Uncinate Fasciculus in Adolescents.

Background: Neighborhood- or area-level socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with neural alterations across the life span. However, few studies have examined the effects of neighborhood disadvantage on white matter microstructure during adolescence, an important period of development that coincides with increased risk for psychopathology. Methods: In 200 adolescents (ages 13-20 years; 54.5% female, 4% nonbinary) recruited from 2 studies enriched for early adversity and depression, we examined whether neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage derived from census tract data was related to white matter microstructure in several major white matter tracts. We also examined whether depressive symptoms and sex moderated these associations. Results: Greater neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage was associated with lower fractional anisotropy (FA) in the left arcuate fasciculus (ß = -0.24, false discovery rate [FDR]-corrected p = .035) and right uncinate fasciculus (ß = -0.32, FDR-corrected p = .002) above and beyond the effects of family-level socioeconomic status. Depressive symptoms significantly moderated the association between left arcuate fasciculus FA and both neighborhood (ß = 0.17, FDR-corrected p = .026) and unemployment (ß = 0.22, FDR-corrected p = .004) disadvantage such that these associations were only significant in adolescents who reported less severe depression. Sex did not moderate the association between socioeconomic disadvantage and FA in these tracts. Conclusions: Greater neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage, particularly poverty and educational attainment levels, was associated with lower FA in the arcuate fasciculus and uncinate fasciculus above and beyond the effects of family-level measures of socioeconomic status. These patterns were only observed in adolescents with low levels of depression, suggesting that we must be cautious about generalizing these findings to youths who struggle with mental health difficulties.

Early life stress predicts trajectories of emotional problems and hippocampal volume in adolescence.

Exposure to early life stress (ELS) has been consistently associated with adverse emotional and neural consequences in youth. The development of brain structures such as the hippocampus, which plays a significant role in stress and emotion regulation, may be particularly salient in the development of psychopathology. Prior work has documented smaller hippocampal volume (HCV) in relation to both ELS exposure and risk for psychopathology. We used longitudinal k-means clustering to identify simultaneous trajectories of HCV and emotional problems in 155 youth across three assessments conducted approximately two years apart (mean baseline age = 11.33 years, 57% female). We also examined depressive symptoms and resilience approximately two years after the third timepoint. We identified three clusters of participants: a cluster with high HCV and low emotional problems; a cluster with low HCV and high emotional problems; and a cluster with low HCV and low emotional problems. Importantly, severity of ELS was associated with greater likelihood of belonging to the low HCV/high symptom cluster than to the low HCV/low symptom cluster. Further, low HCV/high symptom participants had more depressive symptoms and lower resilience scores than did participants in the low HCV/low symptom, but not than in the high HCV/low symptom cluster. Our findings suggest that smaller HCV indexes biological sensitivity to stress. This adds to our understanding of the ways in which ELS can affect hippocampal and emotional development in young people and points to hippocampal volume as a marker of susceptibility to context.

Biological sensitivity to adolescent-parent discrepancies in perceived parental warmth.

Introduction: Parenting behaviors are formative to the psychological development of young people; however, parent and adolescent perceptions of parenting are only moderately correlated with each other. Whereas discrepant perceptions may represent a normative process of deindividuation from caregivers in some adolescents, in others a discrepancy might predict psychological maladjustment. The biological sensitivity to context model provides a framework from which individual differences in development can be estimated in adolescents whose perceptions of parenting diverge from those of their parents. Methods: At baseline we obtained diurnal cortisol samples from US adolescents (M = 13.37 years of age, SD = 1.06) as well as parents' and adolescents' ratings of parental warmth; we obtained adolescent-reported symptoms of psychopathology at baseline and again at follow-up two years later (N = 108, 57.5% female). We estimated waking cortisol, cortisol awakening response, and daytime cortisol slopes using piecewise regression models. Results: Lower adolescent than parent ratings of parental warmth predicted increased externalizing symptoms at follow-up. Higher waking cortisol and steeper cortisol awakening response and daytime slopes predicted increased internalizing symptoms at follow-up. Further, discrepant ratings of parental warmth interacted with cortisol awakening response and daytime slopes such that greater discrepancies predicted greater increases in externalizing symptoms in adolescents with steeper cortisol slopes. Conclusions: These findings indicate that steeper changes in cortisol production throughout the day index a greater sensitivity to perceived parental warmth. Lower adolescent than parent ratings of parental warmth may represent dysfunction in the parental relationship rather than a normative process of deindividuation in adolescents with steeper diurnal cortisol slopes.

Social gaze behavior and hyperarousal in young females with fragile X syndrome: A within-person approach.

Children with fragile X syndrome (FXS) often avoid eye contact, a behavior that is potentially related to hyperarousal. Prior studies, however, have focused on between-person associations rather than coupling of within-person changes in gaze behaviors and arousal. In addition, there is debate about whether prompts to maintain eye contact are beneficial for individuals with FXS. In a study of young females (ages 6-16), we used eye tracking to assess gaze behavior and pupil dilation during social interactions in a group with FXS (n = 32) and a developmentally similar comparison group (n = 23). Participants engaged in semi-structured conversations with a female examiner during blocks with and without verbal prompts to maintain eye contact. We identified a social-behavioral and psychophysiological profile that is specific to females with FXS; this group exhibited lower mean levels of eye contact, significantly increased mean pupil dilation during conversations that included prompts to maintain eye contact, and showed stronger positive coupling between eye contact and pupil dilation. Our findings strengthen support for the perspective that gaze aversion in FXS reflects negative reinforcement of social avoidance behavior. We also found that behavioral skills training may improve eye contact, but maintaining eye contact appears to be physiologically taxing for females with FXS.

Virtual (Zoom) Interactions Alter Conversational Behavior and Interbrain Coherence.

A growing number of social interactions are taking place virtually on videoconferencing platforms. Here, we explore potential effects of virtual interactions on observed behavior, subjective experience, and neural "single-brain" and "interbrain" activity via functional near-infrared spectroscopy neuroimaging. We scanned a total of 36 human dyads (72 participants, 36 males, 36 females) who engaged in three naturalistic tasks (i.e., problem-solving, creative-innovation, socio-emotional task) in either an in-person or virtual (Zoom) condition. We also coded cooperative behavior from audio recordings. We observed reduced conversational turn-taking behavior during the virtual condition. Given that conversational turn-taking was associated with other metrics of positive social interaction (e.g., subjective cooperation and task performance), this measure may be an indicator of prosocial interaction. In addition, we observed altered patterns of averaged and dynamic interbrain coherence in virtual interactions. Interbrain coherence patterns that were characteristic of the virtual condition were associated with reduced conversational turn-taking. These insights can inform the design and engineering of the next generation of videoconferencing technology.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Videoconferencing has become an integral part of our lives. Whether this technology impacts behavior and neurobiology is not well understood. We explored potential effects of virtual interaction on social behavior, brain activity, and interbrain coupling. We found that virtual interactions were characterized by patterns of interbrain coupling that were negatively implicated in cooperation. Our findings are consistent with the perspective that videoconferencing technology adversely affects individuals and dyads during social interaction. As virtual interactions become even more necessary, improving the design of videoconferencing technology will be crucial for supporting effective communication.

Expressing appreciation is linked to interpersonal closeness and inter-brain coherence, both in person and over Zoom.

Expressing appreciation is essential for establishing interpersonal closeness, but virtual interactions are increasingly common and create social distance. Little is known about the neural and inter-brain correlates of expressing appreciation and the potential effects of virtual videoconferencing on this kind of interaction. Here, we assess inter-brain coherence with functional near-infrared spectroscopy while dyads expressed appreciation to one another. We scanned 36 dyads (72 participants) who interacted in either an in-person or virtual (Zoom®) condition. Participants reported on their subjective experience of interpersonal closeness. As predicted, expressing appreciation increased interpersonal closeness between dyad partners. Relative to 3 other cooperation tasks (i.e. problem-solving task, creative-innovation task, socio-emotional task), we observed increased inter-brain coherence in socio-cognitive areas of the cortex (anterior frontopolar area, inferior frontal gyrus, premotor cortex, middle temporal gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, and visual association cortex) during the appreciation task. Increased inter-brain coherence in socio-cognitive areas during the appreciation task was associated with increased interpersonal closeness. These findings support the perspective that expressing appreciation, both in-person and virtually, increases subjective and neural metrics of interpersonal closeness.

A meta-analysis of mother-child synchrony in respiratory sinus arrhythmia and contextual risk.

Biobehavioral frameworks of attachment posit that mother-child dyads engage in physiological synchrony that is uniquely formative for children's neurobiological, social, and emotional development. Much of the work on mother-child physiological synchrony has focused on respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). However, the strength of the existing evidence for mother-child RSA synchrony during interaction is unclear. Using meta-analysis, we summarized results from 12 eligible studies comprising 14 samples and 1201 children ranging from infancy to adolescence (Mage  = 5.68 years, SD = 4.13, range = 0.4-17 years) and their mothers. We found that there was a statistically significant, albeit modest, positive within-dyad association between mother and child fluctuations in RSA. There also was evidence for significant heterogeneity across studies. Less mother-child RSA synchrony was observed in high-risk samples characterized by clinical difficulties, history of maltreatment, or socioeconomic disadvantage. We did not find that mother-child RSA synchrony significantly differed by task context, mean child age, or by epoch length for computing RSA. Collectively, these findings suggest that mother-child dyads show correspondence in their fluctuations in RSA, and that RSA synchrony is disrupted in high-risk contexts. Future directions and implications for the study of parent-child physiological synchrony are discussed.

Prefrontal activation in preschool children is associated with maternal adversity and child temperament: A preliminary fNIRS study of inhibitory control.

Exposure to adversity is a well-documented risk factor for cognitive, behavioral, and mental health problems. In fact, the consequences of adversity may be intergenerational. A growing body of research suggests that maternal exposures to adversity, including those prior to childbirth, are associated with offspring biobehavioral development. In a sample of 36 mothers and their preschool-age children (mean child age = 4.21 ± 0.92 years), we used functional near-infrared spectroscopy to replicate and extend this work to include brain activation during inhibitory control in young children. We found that measures of maternal exposure to adversity, including cumulative, childhood, and preconception exposures, were significantly and positively associated with activation in the right frontopolar prefrontal cortex (PFC) and in the left temporal and parietal clusters during inhibitory control. In addition, and consistent with previous findings, children's increased negative affect and decreased effortful control were associated with increased right PFC activation during inhibitory control. These findings provide preliminary evidence that maternal and dispositional risk factors are linked to alterations in PFC functioning during the preschool years. Children of mothers with a history of exposure to adversity, as well as children who are less temperamentally regulated, may require increased neural resources to meet the cognitive demands of inhibitory control.

Vagal flexibility to negative emotions moderates the relations between environmental risk and adjustment problems in childhood.

Neurobiological and social-contextual influences shape children's adjustment, yet limited biopsychosocial studies have integrated temporal features when modeling physiological regulation of emotion. This study explored whether a common underlying pattern of non-linear change in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) across emotional scenarios characterized 4-6 year-old children's parasympathetic reactivity (N = 180). Additionally, we tested whether dynamic RSA reactivity was an index of neurobiological susceptibility or a diathesis in the association between socioeconomic status, authoritarian parenting, and the development of externalizing problems (EP) and internalizing problems over two years. There was a shared RSA pattern across all emotions, characterized by more initial RSA suppression and a subsequent return toward baseline, which we call vagal flexibility (VF). VF interacted with parenting to predict EP. More authoritarian parenting predicted increased EP two years later only when VF was low; conversely, when VF was very high, authoritarian mothers reported that their children had fewer EP. Altogether, children's patterns of dynamic RSA change to negative emotions can be characterized by a higher order factor, and the nature by which VF contributes to EP depends on maternal socialization practices, with low VF augmenting and high VF buffering children against the effects of authoritarian parenting.

Aberrant Neural Response During Face Processing in Girls With Fragile X Syndrome: Defining Potential Brain Biomarkers for Treatment Studies.

BACKGROUND: Children and adolescents with fragile X syndrome (FXS) manifest significant symptoms of anxiety, particularly in response to face-to-face social interaction. In this study, we used functional near-infrared spectroscopy to reveal a specific pattern of brain activation and habituation in response to face stimuli in young girls with FXS, an important but understudied clinical population. METHODS: Participants were 32 girls with FXS (age: 11.8 ± 2.9 years) and a control group of 28 girls without FXS (age: 10.5 ± 2.3 years) matched for age, general cognitive function, and autism symptoms. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy was used to assess brain activation during a face habituation task including repeated upright/inverted faces and greeble (nonface) objects. RESULTS: Compared with the control group, girls with FXS showed significant hyperactivation in the frontopolar and dorsal lateral prefrontal cortices in response to all face stimuli (upright + inverted). Lack of neural habituation (and significant sensitization) was also observed in the FXS group in the frontopolar cortex in response to upright face stimuli. Finally, aberrant frontopolar sensitization in response to upright faces in girls with FXS was significantly correlated with notable cognitive-behavioral and social-emotional outcomes relevant to this condition, including executive function, autism symptoms, depression, and anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: These findings strongly support a hypothesis of neural hyperactivation and accentuated sensitization during face processing in FXS, a phenomenon that could be developed as a biomarker end point for improving treatment trial evaluation in girls with this condition.

Towards assessing subcortical "deep brain" biomarkers of PTSD with functional near-infrared spectroscopy.

Assessment of brain function with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is limited to the outer regions of the cortex. Previously, we demonstrated the feasibility of inferring activity in subcortical "deep brain" regions using cortical functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and fNIRS activity in healthy adults. Access to subcortical regions subserving emotion and arousal using affordable and portable fNIRS is likely to be transformative for clinical diagnostic and treatment planning. Here, we validate the feasibility of inferring activity in subcortical regions that are central to the pathophysiology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; i.e. amygdala and hippocampus) using cortical fMRI and simulated fNIRS activity in a sample of adolescents diagnosed with PTSD (N = 20, mean age = 15.3 ± 1.9 years) and age-matched healthy controls (N = 20, mean age = 14.5 ± 2.0 years) as they performed a facial expression task. We tested different prediction models, including linear regression, a multilayer perceptron neural network, and a k-nearest neighbors model. Inference of subcortical fMRI activity with cortical fMRI showed high prediction performance for the amygdala (r > 0.91) and hippocampus (r > 0.95) in both groups. Using fNIRS simulated data, relatively high prediction performance for deep brain regions was maintained in healthy controls (r > 0.79), as well as in youths with PTSD (r > 0.75). The linear regression and neural network models provided the best predictions.

Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Mental Health and Brain Maturation in Adolescents: Implications for Analyzing Longitudinal Data.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant stress and disruption for young people, likely leading to alterations in their mental health and neurodevelopment. In this context, it is not clear whether youth who lived through the pandemic and its shutdowns are comparable psychobiologically to their age- and sex-matched peers assessed before the pandemic. This question is particularly important for researchers who are analyzing longitudinal data that span the pandemic. Methods: In this study we compared carefully matched youth assessed before the pandemic (n=81) and after the pandemic-related shutdowns ended (n=82). Results: We found that youth assessed after the pandemic shutdowns had more severe internalizing mental health problems, reduced cortical thickness, larger hippocampal and amygdala volume, and more advanced brain age. Conclusions: Thus, not only does the COVID-19 pandemic appear to have led to poorer mental health and accelerated brain aging in adolescents, but it also poses significant challenges to researchers analyzing data from longitudinal studies of normative development that were interrupted by the pandemic.

Maternal-prenatal stress and depression predict infant temperament during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Researchers have begun to examine the psychological toll of the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. Data are now emerging indicating that there may be long-term adverse effects of the pandemic on new mothers and on children born during this period. In a longitudinal study of maternal mental health and child emotional development during the pandemic, we conducted online assessments of a cohort of women at two time points: when they were pregnant at the beginning of the surge of the pandemic in the United States (baseline, N = 725), and approximately 1 year postpartum (follow-up, N = 296), examining prenatal and postnatal maternal mental health, prenatal pandemic-related stress, and infant temperament. Pandemic-related stress at baseline was associated with concurrent depressive symptoms and infant negative affect at follow-up. Baseline maternal depressive symptoms were associated with follow-up depressive symptoms, which in turn were also associated with infant negative affect. Pandemic-related stress during pregnancy may have enduring effects on infant temperament. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the emotional development of children who were in utero during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Anxiety, Depression, and Social Skills in Girls with Fragile X Syndrome: Understanding the Cycle to Improve Outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: Female patients with fragile X syndrome (FXS), a genetic condition associated with a mutation in the FMR1 gene, are at significantly elevated risk for developing anxiety and depression. This study is designed to better understand these symptoms in school-age girls, particularly as they relate to age, social skills, and functional outcomes. METHODS: We compared 58 girls aged 6 to 16 years with FXS with 46 age-matched, sex-matched, and developmentally matched peers without FXS on measures of anxiety, depression, social skills, adaptive behavior, and quality of life. RESULTS: Girls with FXS 10.5 years and older demonstrated significantly higher levels of depression, withdrawal, and social avoidance than girls younger than 10.5 years with FXS ( p -values < 0.01). Girls in the comparison group did not show any age-related differences on these measures. The older FXS cohort also showed associations between social communication and interaction skills, adaptive behavior, and measures of anxiety and depression ( p -values < 0.05) not seen in the comparison group, regardless of age. CONCLUSION: We found that age seems to play an important role in the development of mood symptoms and that such symptoms are uniquely correlated with social communication and reciprocal social interaction behaviors and adaptive functioning in girls with FXS after puberty. These data suggest a critical window of intervention for girls with FXS in the improvement of social interaction skills and the prevention of social avoidance and symptoms of anxiety and depression, with the ultimate goal of improving quality of life and promoting greater independence.

Negative caregiving and stress reactivity moderate the relation between early life stress and externalizing in adolescence.

Exposure to early life stress (ELS) is common and has been implicated in the development of psychopathology; importantly, however, many individuals who experience ELS do not develop emotional or behavioral difficulties. Prior research implicates stress exposure, negative caregiving behaviors, and patterns of physiological reactivity in predicting psychological well-being; however, the precise factors that contribute to resilience versus vulnerability to the adverse effects of stress exposures are not well understood. In a longitudinal study of adolescents (N = 120) assessed at three timepoints approximately every 2 years beginning at the ages of 913 years, we examined the roles of autonomic reactivity to social stress (assessed through skin conductance during the Trier Social Stress Task) and negative caregiving behaviors as moderators of the association between exposure to ELS and internalizing and externalizing symptoms. We found that the relation between ELS and externalizing symptoms was moderated by both negative caregiving and autonomic reactivity, such that the relation between ELS and externalizing was positive at low levels of negative caregiving and at high levels of autonomic reactivity; interactions predicting internalizing symptoms were not statistically significant. These findings highlight the importance of considering physiological and environmental variables that might contribute to susceptibility or resilience to symptoms of psychopathology following exposure to ELS.

Empathy for others versus for one's child: Associations with mothers' brain activation during a social cognitive task and with their toddlers' functioning.

Caregivers who are higher in dispositional empathy tend to have children with better developmental outcomes; however, few studies have considered the role of child-directed (i.e., "parental") empathy, which may be relevant for the caregiver-child relationship. We hypothesized that mothers' parental empathy during their child's infancy will be a stronger predictor of their child's social-emotional functioning as a toddler than will mothers' dispositional empathy. We further explored whether parental and dispositional empathy have shared or distinct patterns of neural activation during a social-cognitive movie-watching task. In 118 mother-infant dyads, greater parental empathy assessed when infants were 6 months old was associated with more social-emotional competencies and fewer problems in the children 1 year later, even after adjusting for dispositional empathy. In contrast, dispositional empathy was not associated with child functioning when controlling for parental empathy. In a subset of 20 mothers, insula activation was positively associated with specific facets of both dispositional and parental empathy, whereas right temporoparietal junction activation was associated only with parental empathy. Thus, dispositional and parental empathy appear to be dissociable by both brain and behavioral metrics. Parental empathy may be a viable target for interventions, especially for toddlers at risk for developing social-emotional difficulties.