Investigating the association between parity and the maternal neural response to infant cues

ABSTRACT

Understanding the maternal neural response to infant affective cues has important implications for parent-child relationships. The current study employed event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine patterns in mothers’ responses to infant affective cues, and evaluated the influence of maternal experience, defined by parity (i.e., the number of children a mother has) on ERP responses. Eighty-three mothers, three months postpartum, viewed photographs of displays of infant emotional faces (sad or happy) and listened to infant cries of different distress levels and a control tone. Maternal neural response was modulated by the emotional content of the auditory stimulus, as indexed by the N100 amplitude and latency. However, response to infant faces was not modulated by the emotional content of the stimuli as indexed by the N170. Neither N100 nor N170 were affected by parity. Maternal engagement with auditory stimuli, as indexed by the P300, was modulated by the emotional content of the cry and was affected by parity. A similar parity effect was observed for the P300 response to infant faces. Results suggest that parity may play an important role at later stages of maternal infant cue perception.

KEYWORDS:

• Parity
• mothers
• parenting
• EEG/ERPs
• infant faces
• infant cries

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Marion Mayes, Max Greger-Moser, Jasmine Coleman, and Amanda Ng for their help with data collection.

Disclosure statement

The authors report that they have no financial conflicts of interest with respect to the content of this manuscript. Over the past 3 years, Dr. Potenza has received financial support or compensation for the following: Dr. Potenza has consulted for and advised Ironwood, Lundbeck, Shire, Rivermend Health, Lakelight Therapeutics/Opiant, and Jazz Pharmaceuticals; has received research support from the Mohegan Sun Casino, the National Center for Responsible Gaming; has participated in surveys, mailings or telephone consultations related to drug addiction, impulse control disorders or other health topics; has consulted for legal and gambling entities on issues related to impulse control disorders and addictions; provides clinical care in the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services Problem Gambling Services Program; has performed grant reviews for the NIH and other agencies; has edited journals and journal sections; has given academic lectures in grand rounds, CME events and other clinical or scientific venues; and has generated books or book chapters for publishers of mental health texts. The other authors reported no biomedical financial interests or other conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the NIH (NIDA) grants [P01 DA022446; R01 DA026437], as well as the Anna Freud Centre (UK), the Connecticut Mental Health Center, the National Alliance for Medical Image Computing (NA-MIC) [U54 EB005149], and a NIMH T32 postdoctoral fellowship [MH018268]. This publication was also made possible by CTSA [Grant Number UL1 RR024139], from the National Center for Research Resources, a component of the NIH, and NIH roadmap for Medical Research. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of any of the funding agencies.