Prospective association of maternal psychosocial stress in pregnancy with newborn hippocampal volume and implications for infant social-emotional development

AbstractMaternal psychosocial stress during pregnancy can impact the developing fetal brain and influence offspring mental health. In this context, animal studies have identified the hippocampus and amygdala as key brain regions of interest, however, evidence in humans is sparse. We, therefore, examined the associations between maternal prenatal psychosocial stress, newborn hippocampal and amygdala volumes, and child social-emotional development.In a sample of 86 mother-child dyads, maternal perceived stress was assessed serially in early, mid and late pregnancy. Following birth, newborn (aged 5–64 postnatal days, mean: 25.8 ± 12.9) hippocampal and amygdala volume was assessed using structural magnetic resonance imaging. Infant social-emotional developmental milestones were assessed at 6- and 12-months age using the Bayley-III.After adjusting for covariates, maternal perceived stress during pregnancy was inversely associated with newborn left hippocampal volume (β = −0.26, p = .019), but not with right hippocampal (β = −0.170, p = .121) or bilateral amygdala volumes (ps > .5). Furthermore, newborn left hippocampal volume was positively associated with infant social-emotional development across the first year of postnatal life (B = 0.01, p = .011). Maternal perceived stress was indirectly associated with infant social-emotional development via newborn left hippocampal volume (B = −0.34, 95% CIBC [-0.97, −0.01]), suggesting mediation.This study provides prospective evidence in humans linking maternal psychosocial stress in pregnancy with newborn hippocampal volume and subsequent infant social-emotional development across the first year of life. These findings highlight the importance of maternal psychosocial state during pregnancy as a target amenable to interventions to prevent or attenuate its potentially unfavorable neural and behavioral consequences in the offspring.</p

Prediction of Auditory and Visual P300 Brain-Computer Interface Aptitude

Objective: Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) provide a non-muscular communication channel for patients with late-stage motoneuron disease (e.g., amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)) or otherwise motor impaired people and are also used for motor rehabilitation in chronic stroke. Differences in the ability to use a BCI vary from person to person and from session to session. A reliable predictor of aptitude would allow for the selection of suitable BCI paradigms. For this reason, we investigated whether P300 BCI aptitude could be predicted from a short experiment with a standard auditory oddball. Methods: Forty healthy participants performed an electroencephalography (EEG) based visual and auditory P300-BCI spelling task in a single session. In addition, prior to each session an auditory oddball was presented. Features extracted from the auditory oddball were analyzed with respect to predictive power for BCI aptitude. Results: Correlation between auditory oddball response and P300 BCI accuracy revealed a strong relationship between accuracy and N2 amplitude and the amplitude of a late ERP component between 400 and 600 ms. Interestingly, the P3 amplitude of the auditory oddball response was not correlated with accuracy. Conclusions: Event-related potentials recorded during a standard auditory oddball session moderately predict aptitude in an audiory and highly in a visual P300 BCI. The predictor will allow for faster paradigm selection. Significance: Our method will reduce strain on patients because unsuccessful training may be avoided, provided the results can be generalized to the patient population

The User-Centered Design as Novel Perspective for Evaluating the Usability of BCI-Controlled Applications

Albeit research on brain-computer interfaces (BCI) for controlling applications has expanded tremendously, we still face a translational gap when bringing BCI to end-users. To bridge this gap, we adapted the user-centered design (UCD) to BCI research and development which implies a shift from focusing on single aspects, such as accuracy and information transfer rate (ITR), to a more holistic user experience. The UCD implements an iterative process between end-users and developers based on a valid evaluation procedure. Within the UCD framework usability of a device can be defined with regard to its effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. We operationalized these aspects to evaluate BCI-controlled applications. Effectiveness was regarded equivalent to accuracy of selections and efficiency to the amount of information transferred per time unit and the effort invested (workload). Satisfaction was assessed with questionnaires and visual-analogue scales. These metrics have been successfully applied to several BCI-controlled applications for communication and entertainment, which were evaluated by end-users with severe motor impairment. Results of four studies, involving a total of N = 19 end-users revealed: effectiveness was moderate to high; efficiency in terms of ITR was low to high and workload low to medium; depending on the match between user and technology, and type of application satisfaction was moderate to high. The here suggested evaluation metrics within the framework of the UCD proved to be an applicable and informative approach to evaluate BCI controlled applications, and end-users with severe impairment and in the locked-in state were able to participate in this process

Exposure to childhood maltreatment and systemic inflammation across pregnancy: The moderating role of depressive symptomatology

BackgroundChildhood maltreatment (CM) has long-term consequences for dysregulation of the immune system which is particularly pronounced when mental and physical health sequelae have manifested. Higher proinflammatory state has been shown in non-pregnant state in association with CM as well as with depression, one of the most frequent and pernicious psychiatric sequelae of CM. During pregnancy, however, this association is less clear. Given the important role of maternal inflammatory state during pregnancy for fetal, pregnancy, and birth outcomes, we sought to examine the association between CM and proinflammatory state during pregnancy considering the moderating role of maternal depressive symptoms characterized serially across pregnancy.MethodsA prospective, longitudinal study of 180 healthy pregnant women was conducted with serial assessments in early (12.98&nbsp;±&nbsp;1.71&nbsp;weeks gestation), mid (20.53&nbsp;±&nbsp;1.38&nbsp;weeks gestation) and late (30.42&nbsp;±&nbsp;1.4&nbsp;weeks gestation) pregnancy. Maternal history of CM was assessed with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) and the total score was used as an indicator of CM experience. Maternal depressive symptoms were assessed at each pregnancy visit with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). Serum concentrations of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and interleukin (IL)-6 were obtained at each pregnancy visit and combined to a composite maternal proinflammatory score. Linear mixed effects models were employed to assess the association between CTQ score, CES-D score, and proinflammatory score during pregnancy, adjusting for potential confounders.ResultsGestational age was associated with the proinflammatory score (B&nbsp;=&nbsp;0.02; SE&nbsp;=&nbsp;0.00; p&nbsp;&lt;&nbsp;.001), indicating an increase in inflammation across gestation. Neither CTQ score nor depressive symptoms were independently associated with the proinflammatory score (ps&nbsp;&gt;&nbsp;0.28). However, the interaction between CTQ score and depressive symptoms was associated with the proinflammatory score (B&nbsp;=&nbsp;0.03, SE&nbsp;=&nbsp;0.01, p&nbsp;&lt;&nbsp;.05), indicating higher inflammation across pregnancy with increasing levels of depressive symptoms during pregnancy in women with higher CTQ scores. Exploratory analyses suggested that this interaction was mainly driven by CTQ subscale scores assessing experiences of abuse rather than neglect.ConclusionsThese findings suggest a moderating role of maternal depressive symptoms during pregnancy on the association of early life stress with inflammation and thus highlight the importance of the timely assessment of both CM exposure and depressive symptoms which might allow for the development of targeted and individualized interventions to impact inflammation during pregnancy and to ameliorate the detrimental long-term effects of CM. The current findings add to a better understanding of the prenatal biological pathways that may underlie intergenerational transmission of maternal CM

Out of the frying pan into the fire-the P300-based BCI faces real-world challenges

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have been investigated for more than 20 years. Many BCIs use noninvasive electroencephalography as a measurement technique and the P300 event-related potential as an input signal (P300 BCI). Since the first experiment with a P300 BCI system in 1988 by Farwell and Donchin, not only data processing has improved but also stimuli presentation has been varied and a plethora of applications was developed and refined. Nowadays, these applications are facing the challenge of being transferred from the research laboratory into real-life situations to serve motor-impaired people in their homes as assistive technology. © 2011 Elsevier B.V

Visual support matrix displayed on a computer screen to the participant during the auditory P300-BCI experiment [22].

<p>The matrix was identical to the visual P300 BCI matrix. The speakers displayed at the top left corner of the matrix indicate the auditory presentation of numbers and were not displayed during the actual experiment.</p

Signed values between auditory oddball amplitudes of all time points and channels with <i>auditory</i> P300 BCI performance (defined as the number of sequences needed to reach 70% accuracy) are shown in red for positive correlations and in blue for negative correlations (A).

<p>Two elements from the matrix were selected for visualization using scatter plots (B) showing a correlation of on electrode FC5 and a correlation of on electrode PO2. Topographic distributions of the signed values are shown at the bottom (C). Note that due to the use of “number of sequences needed to reach 70% accuracy” as performance measure positive correlations indicate a decrease in performance with increasing amplitude, whereas negative correlations indicate an increase of performance with decreasing amplitude.</p

Amplitudes, latencies and correlations thereof with BCI performance shown for N200 (minimal amplitude before latency of P300 on Cz), P300 (maximum between 250 and 700 ms on Cz) and late ERP component (maximum after P300 latency on POz).

<p>Amplitudes, latencies and correlations thereof with BCI performance shown for N200 (minimal amplitude before latency of P300 on Cz), P300 (maximum between 250 and 700 ms on Cz) and late ERP component (maximum after P300 latency on POz).</p

Signed values between auditory oddball amplitudes of all time points and channels with <i>visual</i> P300 BCI performance (defined as the number of sequences needed to reach 70% accuracy) are shown in red for positive correlations and in blue for negative correlations (A).

<p>Two elements from the matrix were selected for visualization using scatter plots (B) showing a correlation between performance and amplitude of on electrode C2 and of on electrode PO7. Topographic distributions of the signed values are shown at the bottom (C). Note that due to the use of “number of sequences needed to reach 70% accuracy” as performance measure positive correlations indicate a decrease in performance with increasing amplitude, whereas negative correlations indicate an increase of performance with decreasing amplitude.</p

The letter selection accuracy is plotted as a function of the number of stimulus repetitions, i.e. flashes or spoken row/column numbers.

<p>Data from all 63 EEG channels and a time window of 800 ms was available for the classifier. It can be seen that in the auditory modality only high aptitude users achieve an error rate below 20% comparable to the visual modality for all users. Dashed lines: visual P300 BCI; Continuous lines: auditory P300 BCI.</p