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Using a Murine Model of Psychosocial Stress in Pregnancy as a Translationally Relevant Paradigm for Psychiatric Disorders in Mothers and Infants
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Happy faces are habituated more slowly by infants of depressed mothers

Maria Hernandez-Reif1, Tiffany Field, Miguel Diego

  • 1Touch Research Institutes, Department of Pediatrics, University of Miami School of Medicine, PO Box 016820 (D-820), Miami, FL 33101, USA. mhernan4@med.miami.edu

Infant Behavior & Development
|December 2, 2006
PubMed

Three-month-old infants of depressed (n=16) and non-depressed mothers (n=16) were habituated to video clips of a female model reciting phrases while posing happy or sad facial/vocal expressions and dishabituated to the alternate expressions. Overall, infants of depressed mothers took longer to habituate the video clips compared to infants of non-depressed mothers, and those assigned to habituate the sad video clips displayed a novelty response or dishabituated to the happy expressions. These findings suggest that 3-month-old infants of depressed mothers discriminate sad from happy expressions, however, they do not appear to perceive sad expressions as novel.

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