Maternal Antenatal Depression and Deviations From Normative Brain Development in Offspring.

BACKGROUND

Maternal mental health during pregnancy is important for optimal brain development in offspring. Exposure to maternal depression in utero has been shown to be associated with accelerated global cortical brain aging in young adulthood. However, it is not clear whether maternal antenatal depression (MAD) also predicts region-specific deviations from normative development of cortical thickness, surface area, and subcortical volume in offspring or whether the region-specific deviations remain stable throughout the third decade of life.

METHODS

Two neuroimaging follow-ups of a prenatal birth cohort in young adulthood tested whether MAD was associated with deviations from normative brain development in the offspring in their early and late 20s, as modeled using 37,407 magnetic resonance images from individuals 3 to 90 years of age (CentileBrain).

RESULTS

MAD predicted deviations from normative development of thalamus and nucleus accumbens but not other subcortical volumes, surface area, or cortical thickness. Women exposed to greater MAD showed a smaller thalamus and nucleus accumbens in both the early and late 20s than expected based on age- and sex-normative means. In contrast, men exposed to greater MAD showed no deviations from the development of the thalamus but did show a larger nucleus accumbens in their late 20s than expected based on age- and sex-normative means.

CONCLUSIONS

Given the importance of the thalamus in the pathogenesis of major depressive disorder and the critical role of the nucleus accumbens in reward and motivation, the altered development of these subcortical structures may contribute to a higher risk of depression.