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Parent–child intervention decreases stress and increases maternal brain activity and connectivity during own baby-cry: An exploratory study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2017

James E. Swain ,
S. Shaun Ho ,
Katherine L. Rosenblum ,
Diana Morelen ,
Carolyn J. Dayton  and
Maria Muzik
James E. Swain*
Affiliation:
Stony Brook University Medical Center University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Yale University
S. Shaun Ho
Affiliation:
Stony Brook University Medical Center
Katherine L. Rosenblum
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Diana Morelen
Affiliation:
East Tennessee State University
Carolyn J. Dayton
Affiliation:
Wayne State University
Maria Muzik
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: James E. Swain, Department of Psychiatry, Stony Brook University Medical Center, HSC, T10-020, Stony Brook, NY 11794-8101; E-mail: james.swain@stonybrookmedicine.edu.
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Abstract

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.

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Footnotes

This article is supported by the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (to J.E.S.), the State of Michigan, Department of Community Health (2009–2010, to M.M.); the University of Michigan's Injury Center (Center for Disease Control and Prevention U49/CE002099); the Center for Human Growth and Development (to J.E.S.); the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar Awards (to J.E.S. and M.M.); and the National Institutes for Health National Center for Advanced Translational Sciences via the Michigan Institute for Clinical Health Research UL1TR000433 (to J.E.S., S.S.H., C.J.D., K.L.R., and M.M.).

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