Epigenetic modifications associated with maternal anxiety during pregnancy and children's behavioral measures

Epigenetic changes are associated with altered behavior and neuropsychiatric disorders and they modify the trajectory of aging. Maternal anxiety during pregnancy is a common environmental challenge for the fetus, causing changes in DNA methylation. Here, we determined the mediating role of DNA methylation and the moderating role of offspring sex on the association between maternal anxiety and children’s behavioral measures. In 83 mother–child dyads, maternal anxiety was assessed in each trimester of pregnancy when the child was four years of age. Children’s behavioral measures and children’s buccal DNA methylation levels (NR3C1, IGF2/H19 ICR, and LINE1) were examined. Higher maternal anxiety during the third trimester was associated with more methylation levels of the NR3C1. Moderating effects of sex on the association between maternal anxiety and methylation were found for IGF2/H19 and LINE1 CpGs. Mediation analysis showed that methylation of NR3C1 could buffer the effects of maternal anxiety on children’s behavioral measures, but this effect did not remain significant after controlling for covariates. In conclusion, our data support an association between maternal anxiety during pregnancy and DNA methylation. The results also underscore the importance of sex differences and timing effects. However, DNA methylation as underlying mechanism of the effect of maternal anxiety during pregnancy on offspring’s behavioral measures was not supported

Potential benefits of mindfulness during pregnancy on maternal autonomic nervous system function and infant development

Mindfulness is known to decrease psychological distress. Possible benefits in pregnancy have rarely been explored. Our aim was to examine the prospective association of mindfulness with autonomic nervous system function during pregnancy and with later infant social-emotional development. Pregnant women (N = 156) completed self-report mindfulness and emotional distress questionnaires, and had their autonomic function assessed in their first and third trimesters, including heart rate (HR), indices of heart rate variability (HRV), preejection period (PEP), and systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). The social-emotional development of 109 infants was assessed at 4 months of age. More mindful pregnant women had less prenatal and postnatal emotional distress (p < .001) and higher cardiac parasympathetic activity: root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD: p = .03) and high-frequency (HF) HRV (p = .02). Between the first and third trimesters, women's overall HR increased (p < .001), and HRV (RMSSD, HF HRV, and low-frequency (LF) HRV: p < .001) and PEP decreased (p < .001). In more mindful mothers, parasympathetic activity decreased less (RMSSD: p = .01; HF HRV: p = .03) and sympathetic activity (inversely related to PEP) increased less (PEP: p = .02) between trimesters. Their offspring displayed less negative social-emotional behavior (p = .03) compared to offspring of less mindful mothers. Mindfulness in pregnancy was associated with ANS changes likely to be adaptive and with better social-emotional offspring development. Interventions to increase mindfulness during pregnancy might improve maternal and offspring health, but randomized trials are needed to demonstrate this.status: publishe

Differences between human auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) measured at 2 and 4 months after birth

Infant auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) show a series of marked changes during the first year of life. These AERP changes indicate important advances in early development. The current study examined AERP differences between 2- and 4-month-old infants. An auditory oddball paradigm was delivered to infants with a frequent repetitive tone and three rare auditory events. The three rare events included a shorter than the regular inter-stimulus interval (ISI-deviant), white noise segments, and environmental sounds. The results suggest that the N250 infantile AERP component emerges during this period in response to white noise but not to environmental sounds, possibly indicating a developmental step towards separating acoustic deviance from contextual novelty. The scalp distribution of the AERP response to both the white noise and the environmental sounds shifted towards frontal areas and AERP peak latencies were overall lower in infants at 4 than at 2 months of age. These observations indicate improvements in the speed of sound processing and maturation of the frontal attentional network in infants during this period. Keywords: Auditory event-related potential, Infancy, Auditory attention, Cognitive development, Oddball paradig

Mindful pregnancy: Maternal mindfulness during the perinatal period affects the infant's auditory ERPs at 9 months of age

status: publishe