Associations of Maternal Emotion Regulation with Child White matter Connectivity in Black American Mother-Child Dyads

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Chenyang Wang, Emory University; Dominique L. La Barrie, University of Georgia; Abigail Powers, Emory University; Anais F. Stenson, Emory University; Sanne van Rooij, Emory University; Jennifer S. Stevens, Emory University; Tanja Jovanovic, Emory University; Bekh Bradley-Davino, Emory University; Robin Elizabeth McGee, Emory University; Negar Fani, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2022-11
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC.
• Final Published Version (URL): https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.22303
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Developmental Psychobiology
• Volume: 64
• Issue: 7
• Start Page: e22303
• Grant/Funding Information: This study was supported by NIH funding (MH100122 and MH111682 to TJ, HD071982 to BB, AT011267 to NF) as well as the Emory Medical Care Foundation and Emory University Research Foundation.
• Keywords: emotion regulation; diffusion tensor imaging; intergenerational; white matter connectivity; Black American
• Research Categories: Psychology, Developmental

Abstract

Background: Parental emotion regulation plays a major role in parent-child interactions, and in turn, neural plasticity in children, particularly during sensitive developmental periods. However, little is known about how parental emotion dysregulation is associated with variation in children’s brain structure, which was the goal of this study. Methods: Forty-five Black American mother-child dyads were recruited from an intergenerational trauma study; emotion regulation in mothers and their children (age 8–13 years) was assessed. Diffusion-weighted images were collected in children; deterministic tractography was used to reconstruct pathways of relevance to emotion regulation. Metrics of white matter connectivity [fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD)] were extracted for pathways. Socio-economic variables were also included in statistical models. Results: Maternal emotion dysregulation was the strongest predictor of child fornix MD (r=0.35, p=.001), indicating that more severe emotion dysregulation in mothers corresponded with lower fornix connectivity in children. Maternal impulsivity was a strong predictor of child fornix MD (r=0.51, p<.001). Conclusion: Maternal emotion dysregulation may adversely influence connectivity of the child’s fornix, a hippocampal-striatal pathway implicated in reward processes; these associations remained even after accounting for other socio-environmental factors. Dysregulated maternal emotions may uniquely impact children’s adaptation to trauma/stress by affecting networks that support appetitive processing.