Maternal buffering of fear-potentiated startle in children and adolescents with trauma exposure

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Sanne J.H. van Rooij, Emory University; Dorthie Cross, Emory University; Jennifer S. Stevens, Emory University; L. Alexander Vance, Emory University; Ye Ji Kim, Emory University; Bekh Bradley-Davino, Emory University; Nim Tottenham, Colombia Univ; Tanja Jovanovic, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2017-01-01
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge): STM, Behavioural Science and Public Health Titles
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2016.1164244
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Social Neuroscience
• ISSN: 1747-0919
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 1
• Start Page: 22
• End Page: 31
• Grant/Funding Information: This work was funded in part by the Brain and Behavior Foundation (formerly NARSAD; T.J.).; The conference that occasioned this special issue was supported by NSF grant BCS-1439258.; This work was supported by National Institute of Health Grants MH100122 (PI, T.J.) and HD071982 (PI, B.B.), the Emory Medical Care Foundation, the Atlanta Clinical Translational Science Institute, the NIH National Centers for Research Resources (M01 RR00039).
• Keywords: ATTACHMENT; Neurosciences & Neurology; Social Sciences; POSTTRAUMATIC-STRESS-DISORDER; Psychology; trauma exposure; Fear conditioning; maternal buffering; INFANT RHESUS-MONKEYS; AMYGDALA; fear-potentiated startle; RESPONSES; Science & Technology; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; ANIMAL-MODELS; SEPARATION; MECHANISMS; maternal warmth; PARENTAL WARMTH; Neurosciences; FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY
• Research Categories: Psychology, General; Psychology, Developmental

Abstract

Parental availability influences fear expression and learning across species, but the effect of maternal buffering on fear learning in humans is unknown. Here we investigated the effect of maternal availability during fear conditioning in a group of children (ages 8–10) and adolescents (ages 11–13) from a low-income population with a range of trauma exposure. Acoustic startle response data were collected to measure fear-potentiated startle (FPS) in 104 participants. A total of 62 participants were tested with the mother available and 42 when the mother was not in the testing room. We observed that maternal availability during fear conditioning interacted with age to affect FPS discrimination between CS+ and CS–. In line with previous findings suggesting an absence of maternal buffering in adolescents, fear discrimination was affected by maternal availability only in children. Second, we observed that the effect of maternal buffering on FPS discrimination in children was not influenced by maternally reported warmth. In conclusion, we demonstrated that maternal availability improved discrimination in children, regardless of the quality of the relationship. Adolescents discriminated irrespective of maternal status, suggesting that childhood may be a sensitive period for environmental influences on key processes such as learning of danger and safety signals.