Developmental psychobiology最新文献

Thyroid hormones are critical for brain development, and numerous studies have reported that hypothyroidism in neonatal life results in long-lasting changes in activity, cognition, and social behavior. However, most rodent developmental hypothyroidism paradigms induce hypothyroidism in the dam as well, and these enduring behavioral impacts may be partly mediated by changes in the maternal care pups receive. The goals of this study were to determine whether postpartum hypothyroidism alters maternal care and whether the maternal behavior of the pups experiencing postnatal hypothyroidism is altered when they have their own pups. We induced hypothyroidism using methimazole (MMI; 0.025%) in the drinking water from P0 to P21, and we measured maternal behavior using 30-min observations every 2 days for 2 weeks; these were followed by a pup retrieval test. When female offspring from these litters reached adulthood, we mated them with control males and repeated the maternal behavior observations and retrieval tests once pups were born. There were no largescale deficits in maternal care in either generation; instead, both groups of MMI-treated females retrieved faster and engaged in more nesting behavior than controls. These results suggest that the effects of postnatal hypothyroidism on early brain development are not likely caused by maternal neglect.

Over the last 75 years, the developmental approach to developmental disability has touted—as one of its central tenets—the need to consider development in our understanding of developmental difference. This idea can be examined in many ways, but operationally and pragmatically, it has meant considering the impact of cognitive ability on our dependent variables and being mindful of the comparisons we make, and in the conclusions that we draw from those comparisons. The argument for considering the role of cognitive ability in our understanding of group differences originates in the study of intellectual disability, where there was a desire to understand profiles of strengths and weaknesses. This profile, or group difference approach, is also common to the field of autism and is particularly relevant to neuroscience-focused work. While many autistic people do not have co-occurring intellectual disability, IQ differences between groups can still obscure findings. Here, we aim to highlight reasons why the consideration of cognitive ability in neuroscience research on autism is relevant and critical to the field.

Mother–infant physiological coregulation may vary by the infants’ developmental needs. We examined whether infant developmental status was associated with dynamic trajectories of mother–infant respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) coregulation. Fifty-three US mothers and infants oversampled for lower income, higher stress, and child maltreatment risk completed a double Face-to-Face Still-Face (FFSF) paradigm, alternating between play and stress conditions, in which RSA was collected in 30-s epochs. Infant development was measured using the Developmental Assessment for Young Children Socioemotional Skills and Adaptive Behavior subscales and the Survey of Well-Being of Young Children Developmental Milestones subscale. Growth modeling of RSA coregulation across the FFSF indicated two significant interactions: a time × mother RSA × infant socioemotional skills interaction, indicating a dyadic RSA pattern whereby maternal physiological engagement (RSA withdrawal) buffering infant stress (RSA augmentation) was linked to higher infant socioemotional competence; and a condition × infant RSA × developmental milestones interaction, suggesting that in infants with lower developmental milestones, this same dyadic pattern of infant RSA augmentation coupled with maternal RSA withdrawal was more likely during stress conditions. Findings suggest mother–infant RSA coregulation varies by infants’ developmental status, with mothers offering more support during challenging contexts. Findings may inform the promotion of adaptive caregiving behaviors and infant development in interventions with high-risk families.

Recent calls emphasize the need to diversify samples in developmental psychobiology regarding race and ethnicity. However, there is limited guidance on effective methods to involve individuals from marginalized communities in research, or which issues these participants prioritize when considering involvement in studies with neurobiological data collection. Here, we explore these motivations for caregivers with children of color who participated in developmental psychobiology research and how their racial/ethnic identities influenced their experience. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 13 caregivers whose children participated in a study exploring adversity and brain development (61.5% self-identify as Black; 100% self-identifying as a woman). Using thematic analysis, we observed that caregivers participated to spend quality time with their child, gain insights to inform their parenting, diversify research, and satisfy their own scientific curiosity. While caregivers generally reported enjoying their participation, they additionally reported remaining mindful of how they present themselves among research staff to mitigate negative stereotypes and keep their families safe, consistent with known historical harm from the scientific community. Lastly, caregiver's feedback on how to increase representation and better disseminate study findings are reported. These results emphasize the importance of centering participants of color to improve representation and minimize harm in psychobiological study procedures.

Infant face recognition shows plasticity, with recent evidence indicating enhancement by the presence of emotional facial expressions. The mechanisms and domain-generality of this effect remain largely unknown. This study tested whether auditory emotional cues (vocalizations) facilitated infants' recognition of other-race faces, a perceptual challenge during the first year of life. Infants (N = 89) were presented with emotionally neutral faces paired with happy, sad, or neutral vocal sounds in a within-subjects design. Experiment 1 assessed recognition using identical face images between the familiarization and test phases, while Experiment 2 examined face recognition across viewpoint changes. Across both experiments, infants exhibited successful face recognition only when they were learned with emotional sounds (happy and sad). This facilitative effect remained stable across the tested age range and did not differ between happy and sad vocalizations. Infants' eye movement data revealed comparable face-looking patterns across conditions, suggesting that the facilitation was not driven by changes in visual attention. Thus, incidental, cross-modal emotional signals significantly enhance infant face recognition. This underscores the early integrative nature of emotion processing and its catalytic role in cognitive development.

Sexual minority (SM) adolescents are at a higher risk of depression compared to their heterosexual peers, indicating a need for multimethod research to identify risk and resilience factors for SM youth. In a sample of 165 adolescents who completed an interview-based acute stress exposure assessment and an interpersonal emotional images task to elicit the late positive potential (LPP) derived from electroencephalogram (EEG), we aimed to investigate (1) differences in the severity of acute interpersonal stress exposure (including peer and family stressors) and depressive symptoms in SM relative to heterosexual adolescents, (2) neural responses to interpersonal emotional images as moderators of the association between SM identity and depressive symptoms, and (3) whether these interactions persist when accounting for disparities in exposure to recent interpersonal stressors. SM adolescents reported higher depressive symptoms and were exposed to more severe recent peer (but not family) stressors than heterosexual adolescents. LPP responses to both positive and negative interpersonal images moderated the association between SM identity and depressive symptoms, such that a relatively blunted LPP potentiated the association. Interactions remained significant when accounting for the severity of peer stressors, suggesting the unique role of neural responses to interpersonal emotional images in depressive symptoms in SM adolescents.