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Infant EEG and temperament negative affectivity: Coherence of vulnerabilities to mothers' perinatal depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2016

Cara M. Lusby ,
Sherryl H. Goodman ,
Ellen W. Yeung ,
Martha Ann Bell  and
Zachary N. Stowe
Cara M. Lusby
Affiliation:
Emory University
Sherryl H. Goodman*
Affiliation:
Emory University
Ellen W. Yeung
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
Martha Ann Bell
Affiliation:
Virginia Tech
Zachary N. Stowe
Affiliation:
Emory University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Sherryl H. Goodman, Department of Psychology, Emory University, 36 Eagle Row, PAIS Building, Atlanta, GA 30306. E-mail: sherryl.goodman@emory.edu.
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Abstract

Associations between infants' frontal EEG asymmetry and temperamental negative affectivity (NA) across infants' first year of life and the potential moderating role of maternal prenatal depressive symptoms were examined prospectively in infants (n = 242) of mothers at elevated risk for perinatal depression. In predicting EEG, in the context of high prenatal depressive symptoms, infant NA and frontal EEG asymmetry were negatively associated at 3 months of age and positively associated by 12 months of age. By contrast, for low depression mothers, infant NA and EEG were not significantly associated at any age. Postnatal depressive symptoms did not add significantly to the models. Dose of infants' exposure to maternal depression mattered: infants exposed either pre- or postnatally shifted from a positive association at 3 months to a negative association at 12 months; those exposed both pre- and postnatally shifted from a negative association at 3 months to a positive association at 12 months. Prenatal relative to postnatal exposure did not matter for patterns of association between NA and EEG. The findings highlight the importance of exploring how vulnerabilities at two levels of analysis, behavioral and psychophysiological, co-occur over the course of infancy and in the context of mothers' depressive symptomatology.

Type
Special Issue Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 28 , Special Issue 4pt1: Mechanisms of Comorbidity, Continuity, and Discontinuity in Psychopathology , November 2016 , pp. 895 - 911
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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