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Children's neural reactivity to maternal praise and criticism: Associations with early depressive symptoms and
Matthew R J Vandermeer1, Pan Liu1, Ola Mohamed Ali1
1Department of Psychology, The Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, Room 3190, 1151 Richmond St., London, ON, Canada.
Insights
Children
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Child Psychiatry
Background:
- Childhood depression is a significant concern with links to early life experiences.
- Understanding neural mechanisms mediating depression risk is crucial for early intervention.
- Maternal feedback processing in children is a potential pathway influencing depression risk.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate children's neural responses to maternal praise and criticism using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
- To examine the association between maternal history of depression and children's neural reactivity.
- To explore the relationship between children's depressive symptoms and their brain activity during feedback reception.
Main Methods:
- fMRI scans were conducted on 81 children (aged ~11 years) while they received praise and criticism from their mothers.
- Children were recruited from the general population and a group with a maternal history of depression.
- Region of Interest (ROI) and whole-brain analyses were performed to correlate neural activity with depressive symptoms.
Main Results:
- Maternal history of depression did not significantly alter children's brain activity to feedback.
- Higher self-reported depressive symptoms in children correlated with reduced activity in the left anterior insula and right putamen during maternal criticism.
- Increased depressive symptoms were associated with heightened activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus during maternal praise.
Conclusions:
- Children's neural processing of maternal feedback, particularly criticism, is linked to their depressive symptoms.
- Maladaptive neural responses in regions involved in emotional and reward processing may contribute to early-onset depression.
- These findings highlight the importance of maternal feedback in the developmental trajectory of childhood depression risk.
Abstract:
Caregiving experiences are implicated in children's depression risk; however, children's neural reactivity to positive and negative feedback from mothers, a potential mediator of depression risk, is poorly understood. In a sample of 81 children (Mage = 11.12 years, SDage = 0.63), some of whom were recruited based on a maternal history of depression (n = 29), we used fMRI to characterize children's neural responses to maternal praise and criticism. Maternal history of depression was unrelated to children's brain activity during both the praise and criticism conditions; however, ROI analyses showed that children's self-reported depressive symptoms were negatively associated with functional activity in the left anterior insula and right putamen while hearing maternal criticism. Whole-brain analyses showed that children's depressive symptoms were positively associated with left inferior frontal gyrus activity while listening to maternal praise. These findings complement past work implicating these brain regions in the processing of emotionally salient stimuli, reward processing, and internal speech. Given associations between early depressive symptoms and later disorder, findings suggest that maladaptive neural processing of maternal feedback may contribute to children's early emerging risk for depression.
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