Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 21, 2026
P50 Sensory Gating in Infants
Published on: December 26, 2013
Neonatal auditory evoked responses are related to perinatal maternal anxiety
Kyle W Harvison1, Dennis L Molfese, Janet Woodruff-Borden
1University of Louisville, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, 317 Life Sciences Building, Louisville, Kentucky 40292, USA. kyle.harvison@allina.com
Insights
Maternal anxiety during pregnancy affects infant brain responses to voices. Neonates of anxious mothers show altered auditory evoked responses, suggesting potential differences in attentional allocation and later developmental outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Maternal Health
Background:
- Maternal stress and anxiety during pregnancy are linked to adverse offspring developmental outcomes.
- Altered fetal neurodevelopmental programming may mediate this relationship.
- Neurophysiologically-based cognitive markers require further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the relationship between perinatal maternal anxiety and neonatal auditory evoked responses (AERs).
- To assess neonatal responses to mother versus stranger voices in relation to maternal anxiety levels.
Main Methods:
- Investigated auditory evoked responses (AERs) in neonates.
- Compared responses to mother's voice versus a female stranger's voice.
- Correlated neonatal AERs with maternal anxiety levels during the perinatal period.
Main Results:
- Neonates of low-anxiety mothers showed distinct frontal slow wave amplitudes to mother's voice compared to stranger's voice.
- Neonates of high-anxiety mothers exhibited an inverse pattern of responses.
- Findings suggest altered attentional allocation in neonates exposed to perinatal maternal anxiety.
Conclusions:
- Neonatal auditory processing may be neurophysiologically impacted by maternal anxiety.
- Altered attentional allocation in infants could be a pathway to negative developmental outcomes.
- This study highlights a potential mechanism linking maternal anxiety to offspring psychological development.
Abstract:
Maternal stress and anxiety during pregnancy are related to negative developmental outcomes for offspring, both physiological and psychological, from the fetal period through early adolescence. This robust relationship is likely to be partly explained by alterations in fetal neurodevelopmental programming, calling for further examination of neurophysiologically-based cognitive markers that may be related to the altered structure-function relationships that contribute to these negative developmental outcomes. The current investigation examined the relationship between perinatal maternal anxiety and neonatal auditory evoked responses (AERs) to mother and stranger voices. Results indicated that neonates of low-anxiety mothers displayed more negative frontal slow wave amplitudes in response to their mother's voice compared to a female stranger's voice, while neonates of high-anxiety mothers showed the opposite pattern. These findings suggest that neonates of perinatally anxious mothers may demonstrate neurophysiologically-based differences in attentional allocation. This could represent one pathway to the negative psychological outcomes seen throughout development in offspring of anxious mothers.
