Developmental psychobiology最新文献

Children with developmental delay are more likely than their typically developing peers to experience emotional dysregulation. Given that there is evidence that respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity indexes emotion regulation, which in turn tracks motor, language, and cognitive development across the early years, RSA reactivity should develop accordingly in that period and differ by developmental status. The present study therefore compared those with and without developmental delay (across adaptive, personal–social, and motor domains) on the growth in RSA reactivity in the preschool years (ages 3–5 years) across three time points. Results showed that those with global developmental delay exhibited atypical RSA reactivity progression (e.g., excessive or insufficient vagal withdrawal) across the preschool years. Follow-up is needed to determine whether this pattern of RSA reactivity persists later in childhood.

Pubertal development is theorized to shape the brain's response to socio-emotional information in the environment. Large-scale longitudinal studies, such as the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, provide the opportunity to examine the association between pubertal maturation and within-person changes in neural activation to emotional stimuli over time. Leveraging ABCD data (n = 9648), the current study examines the coupling between parent-reported pubertal development and changes in youth's brain response to emotional faces in an emotional n-back task (during functional magnetic resonance imaging) across two timepoints (2 years apart). Bivariate latent change score models were fit to regions of interest canonically involved in face processing (fusiform), emotional/motivational salience (amygdala, nucleus accumbens, orbitofrontal cortex [OFC]), and social cognition (temporoparietal junction [TPJ]) to determine the associations between baseline pubertal status and neural response, and rate of change in either variable across time. Results point to both concurrent and longitudinal associations between pubertal maturation and neural activation to emotional faces in regions involved in processing emotional and social information (amygdala, TPJ, accumbens, OFC) but not basic facial processing (fusiform). These findings highlight pubertal maturation as a potential mechanism for change in neural response to emotional information during the transition from childhood to adolescence.

Multiple theoretical models have been proposed to explain how stressor exposure across the life course relates to the functioning of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, as indexed by daily cortisol secretion. However, this association remains understudied in African Americans. The present study tested three competing models of stressor severity across the lifespan and diurnal cortisol secretion in a sample of 203 older African American adults. The cumulative model emphasizes total stressor severity across the lifespan, the biological embedding model emphasizes early-life stressor severity, and the sensitization model instead emphasizes the interaction between early-life and recent stressor severity. Lifetime stressor severity was assessed using the Stress and Adversity Inventory for Adults (Adult STRAIN). Analyses did not support any of the three models tested but, rather, a stressor characteristics perspective, wherein the severity of exposure to specific stressor characteristics was associated with blunted diurnal cortisol slopes. Sensitivity analyses revealed that early life stressor count, rather than severity, was associated with blunted diurnal cortisol slopes. Rather than supporting one of the three competing models of stressor severity, our findings provide preliminary evidence for a stressor characteristics approach and the biological embedding model when examining how lifetime stressor exposure affects HPA-axis activity.

Exposure to the in utero environment provides offspring risk or protection with respect to postpartum development and health across the lifespan. We used latent profile analysis (LPA), considering self-report and physiological indicators to assess the influence of maternal prenatal stress/distress on infant temperament. We predicted that participants who reported greater prenatal stress/distress would have infants with less optimal temperament characteristics (e.g., higher fearfulness, lower smiling/laughter). Women (N = 67) were recruited in the Southwest Washington and Eastern Washington/North Idaho areas. Participants responded to surveys during the third trimester and provided hair samples for cortisol analyses. Postpartum mothers reported on infant temperament. LPA resolved two statistically supported profiles, reflecting lower and higher maternal stress/distress during pregnancy, which we compared with respect to infant temperament (e.g., fearfulness, smiling/laughter). The greater stress/distress exposure group demonstrated higher cortisol concentrations, depression, general anxiety, and perceived stress. Mothers with greater prenatal stress/distress profiles reported their children exhibiting more challenging temperaments (e.g., higher negative emotionality). This pattern of results suggests that groups discernable in terms of prenatal stress/distress exposure also differ with respect to infant reactivity and regulation.

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced challenges for keeping participants and research assistants safe during laboratory visits. One solution was administering research assessments in the participant's home via an online platform, despite limited evidence of whether online tasks have similar effects as laboratory contexts. The present study compares physiological responses to a virtual adaptation of an infant cry stimulus—which is commonly used to evoke and measure autonomic nervous system responses among pregnant individuals—to a traditional laboratory-based cry task. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), electrodermal activity (EDA), and heart rate (HR) were collected during infant cry presentation from 120 pregnant women in their third trimester. Half of the participants observed the infant cry stimulus in the laboratory before the pandemic, and the other half had the task delivered remotely using online teleconferencing technology in their homes. Results revealed that EDA increased and RSA decreased in response to the infant cry stimulus. HR did not significantly change from baseline to the infant cry stimulus. Importantly, whether the participants watched the infant cry stimulus at home versus in the laboratory did not affect their autonomic responses to the stimulus. These results demonstrate the ability of remote tasks to elicit an attachment-relevant stress response in pregnant women for remote data collection.