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Background Research has revealed associations between microbes of the gastrointestinal tract and stress, anxiety and depression in pregnant or postpartum women. While these studies suggest a gut-brain-behaviour axis, no studies have examined microbes of the oral cavity in relation to maternal mental health.Objective To explore a potential oral-brain-behaviour axis related to maternal mental health.Methods Microbes were measured in saliva obtained from 224 second-trimester (mean±SD = 17±2 weeks) women oversampled for stress. Oralome data were associated with women’s recent or cumulative pregnancy stress, trait and state anxiety, depression symptoms and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Covariates explored included age, income, alcohol and tobacco use, dental issues and physical health problems.Results Pregnant women in the high trait anxiety or depression symptom groups had higher oral alpha diversity, indicating higher richness of species within samples. Groups with high and low PTSD symptoms differed in beta diversity, reflecting differences in community composition. Linear discriminant analysis showed differently abundant microbes in women with high stress versus low life stress, anxiety, depression, and PTSD, with the affected microbes mostly differing by symptom. Notably, members of phylum Proteobacteria were more abundant in women with high recent life stress and Spirochaetes was more abundant in women with high depression symptoms. Members of phylum Firmicutes were more abundant in the high trait anxiety and high depression groups. Genus Dialister (previously found to be lower in the gut of depressed non-pregnant people) was higher in women experiencing either high trait or state anxiety, or experiencing high depression symptoms, while genus Eikenella was elevated with high trait anxiety, depression or PTSD.Conclusions The oral microbiome is associated with stress and mental health in pregnant women, in ways different from the gut microbiome or what has been found in non-pregnant people.Clinical implications Understanding oral microbiome–mental health relations may reveal future microbial targets to improve maternal psychological well-being.

Abstract Introduction Early childhood development is a strong predictor of long‐term health outcomes, potentially mediated via epigenetics (DNA methylation). The aim of the current study was to examine how childhood experiences, punitive parenting, and an intergenerational psychotherapeutic intervention may impact DNA methylation in young children and their mothers. Methods Mothers and their infants/toddlers between 0 and 24 months were recruited at baseline (n = 146, 73 pairs) to participate in a randomized control trial evaluating the effectiveness of The Michigan Model of Infant Mental Health Home Visiting (IMH‐HV) parent–infant psychotherapy compared to treatment as usual. Baseline and 12‐month post‐enrollment data were collected in the family's home and included self‐report questionnaires, biological saliva samples, home environment observation, video‐taped parent–child interaction, and audio‐recorded interviews. Saliva DNA methylation was measured at the genes, nuclear receptor subfamily 3 group C member 1 (NR3C1), solute carrier family 6 member 4 (SLC6A4), brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and the genetic element, long interspersed nuclear element‐1 (LINE1). Results For mothers, baseline methylation of BDNF, SLC6A4, NR3C1, or LINE1 was largely not associated with baseline measures of their childhood adversity, adverse life experiences, demographic characteristics related to structurally driven inequities, or to IMH‐HV treatment effect. In infants, there were suggestions that methylation in SLC6A4 and LINE1 was associated with parenting attitudes. Infant BDNF methylation suggested an overall decrease in response to IMH‐HV psychotherapy over 12 months. Conclusions Overall, our findings suggest that the epigenome in infants and young children may be sensitive to both early life experiences and parent–infant psychotherapy.

IntroductionPerinatal depression, a common complication related to childbearing, impacts mothers, children, and families. Efficacious interventions reduce perinatal depression symptoms; effort is needed to prevent the onset of perinatal depression. To determine feasibility and preliminary efficacy in reducing perinatal depression, we conducted a community-based, randomized parallel open pilot trial of Mom Power, a group-based intervention to improve mental health and parenting in mothers with young children.MethodsMom Power consists of 10 group sessions, focused on parenting, child development and self-care and three individual sessions, to build rapport and provide personalized referrals. Control group participants received psychoeducational mailings. Computer-based urn randomization assigned mothers with experiences of interpersonal violence, depression, or other traumatic experiences to Mom Power (68) or control (54).ResultsAt 3-months post-treatment, the 31 retained women assigned to Mom Power were half as likely to meet criteria for probable depression (26%) as the 22 women retained in the control group (55%), with treatment predicting lower incidence of probable depression (OR = 0.13, p = 0.015). Moreover, among the 23 women who did not meet criteria for depression diagnosis at baseline, no women in the treatment group developed depression (n = 0, 0%) compared to control group women (n = 3, 30%). Logistic regression controlling for selective attrition confirmed the treatment effect on preventing new onset of depression (OR = 0.029, p = 0.012).ConclusionThese findings support the use of Mom Power for both treatment and prevention of perinatal depression.Clinical trial registrationhttps://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01554215, NCT01554215.

BackgroundResearch examining the effectiveness of home visiting programs that reduce child maltreatment or associated risks yield mixed findings; some find positive significant impacts on maltreatment, whereas others find small to no effects. The Michigan Model of Infant Mental Health Home Visiting (IMH-HV) is a manualized, needs-driven, relationship-focused, home-based intervention service that significantly impacts maternal and child outcomes; the effect of this intervention on child maltreatment has not been sufficiently evaluated.ObjectiveThe current study examined associations between treatment and dosage of IMH-HV and child abuse potential in a longitudinal, randomized controlled trial (RCT).Participants and settingParticipants included 66 mother-infant dyads (Mother M age = 31.93 years at baseline; child M age = 11.22 months at baseline) who received up to 1 year of IMH-HV treatment (Mdn = 32 visits) or no IMH-HV treatment during the study period.MethodsMothers completed a battery of assessments including the Brief Child Abuse Potential Inventory (BCAP) at baseline and at the 12-month follow-up assessment.ResultsRegression analyses indicated that after controlling for baseline BCAP scores, those who received any IMH-HV treatment had lower 12-month BCAP scores compared to those who received no treatment. Additionally, participation in more visits was associated with lower child abuse potential at 12 months, and a reduced likelihood of scoring in the risk range.ConclusionFindings suggest that greater participation in IMH-HV is associated with decreased risk for child maltreatment 1 year after initiating treatment. IMH-HV promotes parent-clinician therapeutic alliance and provides infant-parent psychotherapy which differentiate it from traditional home visiting programs.

Abstract The impact of COVID-19-related stress on perinatal women is of heightened public health concern given the established intergenerational impact of maternal stress-exposure on infants and fetuses. There is urgent need to characterize the coping styles associated with adverse psychosocial outcomes in perinatal women during the COVID-19 pandemic to help mitigate the potential for lasting sequelae on both mothers and infants. This study uses a data-driven approach to identify the patterns of behavioral coping strategies that associate with maternal psychosocial distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in a large multicenter sample of pregnant women (N = 2876) and postpartum women (N = 1536). Data was collected from 9 states across the United States from March to October 2020. Women reported behaviors they were engaging in to manage pandemic-related stress, symptoms of depression, anxiety and global psychological distress, as well as changes in energy levels, sleep quality and stress levels. Using latent profile analysis, we identified four behavioral phenotypes of coping strategies. Critically, phenotypes with high levels of passive coping strategies (increased screen time, social media, and intake of comfort foods) were associated with elevated symptoms of depression, anxiety, and global psychological distress, as well as worsening stress and energy levels, relative to other coping phenotypes. In contrast, phenotypes with high levels of active coping strategies (social support, and self-care) were associated with greater resiliency relative to other phenotypes. The identification of these widespread coping phenotypes reveals novel behavioral patterns associated with risk and resiliency to pandemic-related stress in perinatal women. These findings may contribute to early identification of women at risk for poor long-term outcomes and indicate malleable targets for interventions aimed at mitigating lasting sequelae on women and children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract Background National estimates of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMAD) and serious mental illness (SMI) among delivering women over time, as well as associated outcomes and costs, are lacking. The prevalence of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and serious mental illness from 2006 to 2015 were estimated as well as associated risk of adverse obstetric outcomes, including severe maternal morbidity and mortality (SMMM), and delivery costs. Methods The study was a serial, cross-sectional analysis of National Inpatient Sample data. The prevalence of PMAD and SMI was estimated among delivering women as well as obstetric outcomes, healthcare utilization, and delivery costs using adjusted weighted logistic with predictive margins and generalized linear regression models, respectively. Results The study included an estimated 39,025,974 delivery hospitalizations from 2006 to 2015 in the U.S. PMAD increased from 18.4 (95% CI 16.4–20.0) to 40.4 (95% CI 39.3–41.6) per 1000 deliveries. SMI also increased among delivering women over time, from 4.2 (95% CI 3.9–4.6) to 8.1 (95% CI 7.9–8.4) per 1000 deliveries. Medicaid covered 72% (95% CI 71.2–72.9) of deliveries complicated by SMI compared to 44% (95% CI 43.1–45.0) and 43.5% (95% CI 42.5–44.5) among PMAD and all other deliveries, respectively. Women with PMAD and SMI experienced higher incidence of SMMM, and increased hospital transfers, lengths of stay, and delivery-related costs compared to other deliveries (P

Ample research links mothers’ postpartum depression (PPD) to adverse interactions with their infants. However, most studies relied on general population samples, whereas a substantial number of women are at elevated depression risk. The purpose of this study was to describe mothers’ interactions with their 6- and 12-month-old infants among women at elevated risk, although with a range of symptom severity. We also identified higher-order factors that best characterized the interactions and tested longitudinal consistency of these factors from 6 to 12 months of infant age. We leveraged data from eight projects across the United States (n = 647), using standardized depression measures and an adaptation of the NICHD Mother-Infant Interaction Scales. Overall, these depression-vulnerable mothers showed high levels of sensitivity and positive regard and low levels of intrusiveness, detachment, and negative regard with their infants. Factor analyses of maternal behaviors identified two overarching factors—“positive engagement” and “negative intrusiveness” that were comparable at 6 and 12 months of infant age. Mothers’ ability to regulate depressed mood was a key behavior that defined “positive engagement” in factor loadings. An exceptionally strong loading of intrusiveness on the second factor suggested its central importance for women at elevated depression risk. Mothers with severe depressive symptoms had significantly more “negative intrusiveness” and less “positive engagement” with their 6-month-old infants than women with moderate or fewer depressive symptoms, suggesting a potential tipping point at which symptoms may interfere with the quality of care. Results provide the foundation for further research into predictors and moderators of women’s interactions with their infant among women at elevated risk for PPD. They also indicate a need for evidence-based interventions that can support more severely depressed women in providing optimal care.

BackgroundThe present study examined the efficacy of the Michigan Model of Infant Mental Health-Home Visiting (IMH-HV) infant mental health treatment to promote the socioemotional wellbeing of infants and young children. Science illuminates the role of parental “co-regulation” of infant emotion as a pathway to young children’s capacity for self-regulation. The synchrony of parent–infant interaction begins to shape the infant’s own nascent regulatory capacities. Parents with a history of childhood adversity, such as maltreatment or witnessing family violence, and who struggle with symptoms of post-traumatic stress may have greater challenges in co-regulating their infant, thus increasing the risk of their children exhibiting social and emotional problems such as anxiety, aggression, and depression. Early intervention that targets the infant–parent relationship may help buffer the effect of parental risk on child outcomes.MethodsParticipants were 58 mother–infant/toddler dyads enrolled in a longitudinal randomized control trial testing the efficacy of the relationship-based IMH-HV treatment model. Families were eligible based on child age (

Age and gender differences are prominent in the temperament literature, with the former particularly salient in infancy and the latter noted as early as the first year of life. This study represents a meta-analysis utilizing Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (IBQ-R) data collected across multiple laboratories (N = 4438) to overcome limitations of smaller samples in elucidating links among temperament, age, and gender in early childhood. Algorithmic modeling techniques were leveraged to discern the extent to which the 14 IBQ-R subscale scores accurately classified participating children as boys (n = 2,298) and girls (n = 2,093), and into three age groups: youngest (< 24 weeks; n = 1,102), mid-range (24 to 48 weeks; n = 2,557), and oldest (> 48 weeks; n = 779). Additionally, simultaneous classification into age and gender categories was performed, providing an opportunity to consider the extent to which gender differences in temperament are informed by infant age. Results indicated that overall age group classification was more accurate than child gender models, suggesting that age-related changes are more salient than gender differences in early childhood with respect to temperament attributes. However, gender-based classification was superior in the oldest age group, suggesting temperament differences between boys and girls are accentuated with development. Fear emerged as the subscale contributing to accurate classifications most notably overall. This study leads infancy research and meta-analytic investigations more broadly in a new direction as a methodological demonstration, and also provides most optimal comparative data for the IBQ-R based on the largest and most representative dataset to date.

COVID-19 has uniquely impacted pregnant women. From the initial unknowns about its virulence during pregnancy, to frequent and rapidly changing hospital guidelines for prenatal care and delivery, pregnant women have felt intense uncertainty and, based on recent research, increased anxiety. This study sought to determine the impact COVID-19 had on women’s birth plans. Open-ended qualitative responses from an anonymous, online survey of pregnant women in the United States, conducted on April 3-24, 2020, were analyzed using the Attride-Stirling qualitative framework. A conceptual framework for understanding the impact of COVID-19 on women’s birth plans was generated. 2,320 pregnant women (mean age 32.7 years, mean weeks pregnant 24.6 weeks) responded to the open-ended prompts, reflecting the following themes: the impact(s) of COVID-19 on pregnant women (including unanticipated changes and uncertainty), the effect of COVID-19 on decision-making (including emotional reactions and subsequent questioning of the healthcare system), and how both of those things led women to either exercise or relinquish their agency related to their birth plan. These findings indicate that the changes and uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 are causing significant challenges for pregnant women, and absent more clarity and more provider-driven support, women seeking to cope are considering changes to their birth plans. Health systems and providers should heed this warning and work to provide pregnant women and their families with more information, support, and collaborative planning to ensure a positive, healthy birth experience, even during a pandemic.

Introduction A considerable literature implicates prenatal stress as a critical determinant of poor psychological functioning in childhood and beyond. However, knowledge about whether the timing of prenatal stress differentially influences the development of child outcomes, including psychopathology, is virtually unknown. The primary aim of our study is to examine how the timing of prenatal stress differentially affects early childhood regulatory functioning as a marker of psychopathology. Our second aim is to examine the mediating effects of maternal physiological and psychological factors during pregnancy. Our third aim is to examine the moderating effects of postnatal factors on child regulatory functioning. Our project is the first longitudinal, prospective, multimethod study addressing these questions.Methods and analysis Our ongoing study recruits pregnant women, oversampled for intimate partner violence (a common event-based stressor allowing examination of timing effects), with data collection starting at pregnancy week 15 and concluding 4 years post partum. We aim to have n=335 mother–child dyads. We conduct a granular assessment of pregnancy stress (measured weekly by maternal report) in order to reveal sensitive periods during fetal life when stress particularly derails later functioning. Pattern-based statistical analyses will be used to identify subgroups of women who differ in the timing of their stress during pregnancy and then test whether these patterns of stress differentially predict early childhood self-regulatory outcomes.Ethics and dissemination Due to the high-risk nature of our sample, care is taken to ensure protection of their well-being, including a safety plan for suicidal ideation and a safety mechanism (exit button in the online weekly survey) to protect participant data privacy. This study was approved by Michigan State University Institutional Review Board. Dissemination will be handled by data sharing through National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Data and Specimen Hub (DASH), as well as through publishing the findings in journals spanning behavioural neuroendocrinology to clinical and developmental psychology.

Abstract Introduction The error‐related negativity (ERN) is a neural response that reflects error monitoring. Contradictorily, an enlarged (more negative) ERN has been cited as both a risk factor and a protective factor, which hinders its utility as a predictive indicator. The aim of the current study was to examine the associations between ERN measured in early childhood with the development of cognitive control (CC), emotion regulation, and internalizing/externalizing symptoms over 1–2 years. Methods When children were ages 5–7, EEG was collected during a Go/No‐Go task. A subset of the original participants (n = 30) were selected based on their baseline ERN in an extreme‐case design: half with high‐amplitude ERN, matched by age and sex with another group with low‐amplitude ERN. Results At follow‐up, children in the High‐Amplitude group showed better executive function, less self‐reported anxiety and depression, less affect dysregulation, more parent‐rated CC, less lability/negativity, and fewer parent‐reported externalizing problems. Many results held even when accounting for baseline levels. Further, emotion dysregulation mediated the relationship between the ERN and both anxiety and externalizing problems, while CC mediated the ERN's relationship with externalizing problems only. Conclusions These results can inform identification and intervention efforts for children at risk for psychopathology.

Stress resilience in parenting depends on the parent's capacity to understand subjective experiences in self and child, namely intersubjectivity, which is intimately related to mimicking other's affective expressions (i. e., mirroring). Stress can worsen parenting by potentiating problems that can impair intersubjectivity, e.g., problems of “over-mentalizing” (misattribution of the child's behaviors) and “under-coupling” (inadequate child-oriented mirroring). Previously we have developed Mom Power (MP) parenting intervention to promote maternal intersubjectivity and reduce parenting stress. This study aimed to elucidate neural mechanisms underlying the effects of MP with a novel Child Face Mirroring Task (CFMT) in functional magnetic-resonance-imaging settings. In CFMT, the participants responded to own and other's child's facial pictures in three task conditions: (1) empathic mirroring (Join), (2) non-mirroring observing (Observe), and (3) voluntary responding (React). In each condition, each child's neutral, ambiguous, distressed, and joyful expressions were repeatedly displayed. We examined the CFMT-related neural responses in a sample of healthy mothers (n = 45) in Study 1, and MP effects on CFMT with a pre-intervention (T1) and post-intervention (T2) design in two groups, MP (n = 19) and Control (n = 17), in Study 2. We found that, from T1 to T2, MP (vs. Control) decreased parenting stress, decreased dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) during own-child-specific voluntary responding (React to Own vs. Other's Child), and increased activity in the frontoparietal cortices, midbrain, nucleus accumbens, and amygdala during own-child-specific empathic mirroring (Join vs. Observe of Own vs. Other's Child). We identified that MP effects on parenting stress were potentially mediated by T1-to-T2 changes in: (1) the left superior-temporal-gyrus differential responses in the contrast of Join vs. Observe of own (vs. other's) child, (2) the dmPFC-PAG (periaqueductal gray) differential functional connectivity in the same contrast, and (3) the left amygdala differential responses in the contrast of Join vs. Observe of own (vs. other's) child's joyful vs. distressed expressions. We discussed these results in support of the notion that MP reduces parenting stress via changing neural activities related to the problems of “over-mentalizing” and “under-coupling.” Additionally, we discussed theoretical relationships between parenting stress and intersubjectivity in a novel dyadic active inference framework in a two-agent system to guide future research.

The error-related negativity (ERN) is a neurophysiologic response to errors that associates with anxiety. Despite the potential relevance of the ERN for understanding mechanisms of early anxiety problems in the developing brain, the relation between ERN and anxious symptoms in young children remains poorly understood. Emerging evidence suggests that ERN-anxiety associations could vary by developmental stage, but this work requires replication and consideration of gender effects, given earlier maturation of the ERN and higher rates of anxiety problems in girls relative to boys. To address this gap, the ERN was collected in 49 preschool- to school-aged children (ages 4–9; 26 girls) sampled across a wide range of anxiety severity. Regression analyses revealed that ERN - anxiety associations depended on age and gender. Specifically, larger (more negative) ERN associated with more anxiety in older girls, whereas smaller ERN associated with more anxiety symptoms in younger girls. No ERN-anxiety association was found in boys. These findings suggest that age and gender moderate the direction of the relation between ERN and anxiety in early childhood and could have important implications for the development of ERN-based risk identification and targeted treatment strategies tailored to individual children. Keywords: ERN, Error-related negativity, Anxiety, Moderator, Children, Development

There is a critical need for fast, inexpensive, objective, and accurate screening tools for childhood psychopathology. Perhaps most compelling is in the case of internalizing disorders, like anxiety and depression, where unobservable symptoms cause children to go unassessed-suffering in silence because they never exhibiting the disruptive behaviors that would lead to a referral for diagnostic assessment. If left untreated these disorders are associated with long-term negative outcomes including substance abuse and increased risk for suicide. This paper presents a new approach for identifying children with internalizing disorders using an instrumented 90-second mood induction task. Participant motion during the task is monitored using a commercially available wearable sensor. We show that machine learning can be used to differentiate children with an internalizing diagnosis from controls with 81% accuracy (67% sensitivity, 88% specificity). We provide a detailed description of the modeling methodology used to arrive at these results and explore further the predictive ability of each temporal phase of the mood induction task. Kinematical measures most discriminative of internalizing diagnosis are analyzed in detail, showing affected children exhibit significantly more avoidance of ambiguous threat. Performance of the proposed approach is compared to clinical thresholds on parent-reported child symptoms which differentiate children with an internalizing diagnosis from controls with slightly lower accuracy (.68-.75 vs. .81), slightly higher specificity (.88-1.00 vs. .88), and lower sensitivity (.00-.42 vs. .67) than the proposed, instrumented method. These results point toward the future use of this approach for screening children for internalizing disorders so that interventions can be deployed when they have the highest chance for long-term success.

There is a significant need to develop objective measures for identifying children under the age of 8 who have anxiety and depression. If left untreated, early internalizing symptoms can lead to adolescent and adult internalizing disorders as well as comorbidity which can yield significant health problems later in life including increased risk for suicide. To this end, we propose the use of an instrumented fear induction task for identifying children with internalizing disorders, and demonstrate its efficacy in a sample of 63 children between the ages of 3 and 7. In so doing, we extract objective measures that capture the full six degree-of-freedom movement of a child using data from a belt-worn inertial measurement unit (IMU) and relate them to behavioral fear codes, parent-reported child symptoms and clinician-rated child internalizing diagnoses. We find that IMU motion data, but not behavioral codes, are associated with parent-reported child symptoms and clinician-reported child internalizing diagnosis in this sample. These results demonstrate that IMU motion data are sensitive to behaviors indicative of child psychopathology. Moreover, the proposed IMU-based approach has increased feasibility of collection and processing compared to behavioral codes, and therefore should be explored further in future studies.

Teaching is a demanding profession with teachers of very young children reporting high rates of stress and exhaustion. We tested the effects of a relationship-focused professional development intervention designed to enhance teachers' use of mindfulness-based strategies to support coping on trajectories of teachers' stress, exhaustion (emotional, physical, and mental), and coping. Infant and toddler teachers (N = 81) from Early Head Start (EHS) or EHS childcare partnerships (CCP) were randomized to the intervention or usual care control condition. Using ecological momentary assessment, teachers completed twice-weekly reports of stress, exhaustion, coping, and coping strategy effectiveness via smartphones for 40 weeks. Multilevel linear regression modeling, accounting for within-person repeated measures, showed no intervention effects on stress and exhaustion trajectories. Teachers in the intervention reported increased use of mindfulness-based strategies for coping over time as compared to the control group, although frequency of use peaked and then declined. While perceptions of stress and exhaustion did not change, teachers' increased use of mindfulness-based strategies suggests improvements in how teachers managed stress and exhaustion; however, the decline in use of coping suggests the need for ongoing support within the workplace.

Consistent, sensitive caregiving across home and childcare contexts supports optimal development. In this paper, we share the story of the development of Hearts and Minds on Babies (HMB) for Early Head Start (EHS) administrators, teachers, and parents. HMB was designed to support caregiver reflective functioning and sensitivity and reduce caregiver stress. This paper describes a series of Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles used to adapt an existing parenting intervention into the HMB programming for EHS. Throughout the paper, we present HMB concepts and learning objectives and share teachers' and parents' feedback and adaptations to content and delivery options that support implementation by EHS programs. Feedback from the final cycle suggests that HMB supports EHS administrators, teachers, and parents in their roles and improves relationships. The paper highlights the importance of research-practice partnerships in developing programming that meets the needs of EHS.

The DRD4 VNTR has been associated with child behavior problems in interaction with maternal insensitivity in European and American cohorts of preschoolers, with the 7-repeat (7R) allele associated with greater problems. We sought to replicate and expand these findings by examining effects on reports of child behavior problems at 18 months. A 63 family sample with data for observed maternal sensitivity ratings, DRD4 VNTR genotype, and maternal report of child behavior problems at 18-months was used in this preliminary analysis. Maternal sensitivity was measured at 6-months of age using laboratory observational measures (free-play and a teaching task). Maternal report of toddler behavior was obtained at 18-months via the standard Child Behavior Checklist, and infant genotype on the DRD4 VNTR was obtained using PCR. Infants carrying the DRD4 7R allele showed greater effects of maternal insensitivity than non-carriers for behavioral problems at 18-months. We replicated previous findings of association of infant DRD4 x maternal sensitivity interactions with child Externalizing problems in the European-ancestry sample (N = 42) in a median split of maternal sensitivity (p = .00011, eta2 = .329) and in regression analyses controlling for maternal age, maternal depression, and child gender in European ancestry (B = -3.4, SE 1.33, p = .01) and the total sample (B = -2.2, SE 1.02, p = .02). Exploratory analyses also found evidence of DRD4 x maternal sensitivity interaction with the CBCL ADHD scale. These findings replicate in an independent cohort DRD4 x maternal insensitivity interaction effect on child externalizing behavior problems at 18 months, further supporting the role of the DRD4 genotype in differential sensitivity to parenting.

Background : Recent research suggests that atypical cortisol awakening response (CAR) is an outcome of negative factors, such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Johnson et al., 2008) and insomnia (Backhaus et al., 2004), in adults. While a positive CAR is present in the vast majority of adults, less is known about the normal development of this response in children. Without a clear sense of typical emergence in early childhood, it is uncertain if risk factors can be standardly associated with the magnitude of CAR during development. Our study aims to expand current research on CAR to children under the age of 8 years. We aim to understand how CAR manifests in young children and how methodological, familial, and child-specific factors contribute to positive CAR (responders). Methods : Fifty-two children (54% female) and mothers participated, ranging in age from 1 to 8 years (M: 4.88, SD: 1.72). Mothers were asked to complete several questionnaires and were sent a “cortisol packet” with instructions to obtain child saliva samples when they awoke (T1) and 45 minutes later (T2) across 2 days. “Responders” were identified as children whose cortisol levels increased from T1 to T2. Results : No difference in responder group by child age was found in this sample. It may suggest a step-like model, such that emergence of positive CAR would begin in infancy (38%: Saridjan, 2010) and that rates may start to increase only around age 10 (60%: Freitag, 2009) until they stabilize in adulthood (75%: Wust, 2000). In contrast to previous literature, methodological variables, such as daily routine and time between samples (Griefahn & Robens, 2011), were not significantly associated with responder status. However, results were consistent with Saridjan and colleagues (2010), demonstrating that lower family income was associated with greater likelihood of being a responder. Maternal psychopathology had no effect on child CAR status. Interestingly, for child-specific factors, internalizing and externalizing scores had the opposite effect such that, for every increase in externalizing score the risk of being in the responder group increased by 13.5%; however, for every increase in internalizing score, the risk of being a responder decreased by 10%. Conclusions : Future research should aim to understand the effects of pure internalizing and externalizing versus comorbidity on cortisol in larger samples.