Mother's Social Behavior in Child Brain Development

Researchers for quite sometime have delved into finding the answers to why some people get mental health issues while others not so much. It’s the never-ending question of nature vs nurture. One side immersed in finding answers from the collection of biological statistical research data gathered from clinical studies over many years. While the other side looks into the more socialization factors that surround a particular problem in how it could impact ones health and wellness behaviors. Each position has it’s merits in truth of how genetic predispositions along with social exposure and conditioning play a significant role in the formation of emotional, neuropsychological and psychiatric disorders. Let’s face it, human beings are a very complex species.

As it turns out, children of mothers with clinical depression are 3 times more likely to develop it themselves as compared to low-risk children. This begs the question as to why? Research scientists have been connecting the dots to identify the underlying neural mechanisms involved in depression so to evaluate the degree in which biological predisposition plays in its development.

The changes in the brain activity in depressed adults have been observed by scientists over many years. The area of most concern is the ventral striatum (VS), which controls motivation & reward, pleasure and goal-oriented behaviors. There is also evidence that the striatum areas are blunted in response to reward-based experiences in adolescent children with depressed parents. This turns out to be a marker for later developing depression.

Upon further study, it now shows that the changes within the ventral striatum typically exist before 13-19 year old children, when the real risk for depression is generally heightened.

A current study, in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, led by Judith Morgan, PhD. at the University of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania and published by Elsevier, took a look into the reward-related brain activity of children of mothers with clinically diagnosed depression.

It found that emotional processing abilities in parents with depression may be disrupted. This is important because this is the process in which children learn appropriate emotional responses from viewing their parents reactions. A positive socialization response of a parent can include imitation, acknowledgment, approval and elaboration while a negative emotional response can be observed as more punitive, dismissive and invalidating.

If the parent’s capacity to appropriately respond to an emotional event has been compromised by depression. It would naturally have social significance in a child’s ability to learn appropriate reactions to everyday events.

The study recruited 49 children aged 6-8 years old, who’s parents had no known history of underlying psychiatric conditions. 50% of the children’s mothers had been clinically diagnosed with depression while the other half had no psychiatric illness. They used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record and measure the reward-related brain activity of the children while playing a video game that involved them guessing which of the two doors contained a hidden token.

The mothers in the study filled out an in-depth questionnaire specifically designed to evaluate parental emotional socialization. It described dozens of different situational vignettes of the displays of children’s positive emotions and collected them to chart the reactions of the parents’.

The research surprisingly found that the children who had a maternal history of depression had a reduced reward-related brain activity in the VS. But, only if the mother had a less than favorable or unenthusiastic response to their child’s positive emotions.

Dr. Morgan said, “ In our study, mothers’ own history of depression by itself was not related to altered brain responses to reward in early school-aged children. Instead, this history had an influence on children’s brain responses only in combination with mothers’ parenting behavior, such as the ability to acknowledge, imitate, or elaborate on their child’s positive emotions.”

Dr. Morgan went on to say, “This is hopeful news as interventions geared at coaching parents to encourage positive emotions in their children may have a powerful impact on child reward-related development, especially for families of children who may be at greater risk because of a family history of depression.”

The results of this study point to a direct effect on how parenting skills can be at the very heart of the problem of unintentionally setting the stage for the early development of depression in their children. This idea goes further to suggest that although there may be a genetic factor present from which a particular mental health challenge can arise; in this case depression. All is not lost, we can still be in control. Honing our parenting skills will make a big difference in our children’s health.

The takeaway should be that we as human beings are not totally at the mercy of our DNA or genetic makeup. But, do have a greater degree of control of our health outcomes based upon our lifestyle choices and behaviors. So, we can ultimately choose to control our families state of health through improving education directed towards improving our strategies in our parenting style.

The editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, Cameron Carter, MD, stated, “this important work provides a great example of how clinical neuroscience can reveal neural mechanisms underlying depression and discover new links that may explain why one person has clinical depression and another does not. These links take us beyond clinical observation and therapy alone to open new avenues (such as parenting interventions) for prevention that can promote resilience and wellness.”

-A Balance Brain is a Better Brain-