Socioeconomic Disadvantage, Neural Responses to Infant Emotions, and Emotional Availability Among First-Time New Mothers
Publication Date
5-15-2017
Document Type
Article
Organizational Units
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology
Keywords
Parenting, Amygdala, Infant faces, Emotional expressions, Maternal behaviors, Neuroimaging
Abstract
During the early postpartum period, mothers exhibit increased amygdala responses to positive infant expressions, which are important for positive mother-infant relationships. Socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with altered amygdala response to emotional stimuli as well as more negative mother-infant relationships. However, little is known about the role of socioeconomic disadvantage in neural responses specifically to infants. Thus, we examined whether socioeconomic disadvantage (indexed by lower income-to-needs ratio) is associated with neural responses to infant emotions and parenting behaviors among new mothers. Using fMRI, neural responses to infants’ emotional expressions (positive, negative, and neutral faces) were assessed among 39 low- and middle-income first-time mothers during 0–6 postpartum months. Lower income-to-needs ratio was associated with dampened amygdala responses to positive infant faces, but increased amygdala responses to negative infant faces. An indirect effect of socioeconomic disadvantage on emotional availability via amygdala activation suggests that socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with heightened neural sensitivity to infants’ negative emotions, which is further associated with mothers’ intrusiveness observed during interactions with their own infant. The findings suggest that low-income mothers may be more vulnerable to altered neural processing of infants’ emotional expressions which may further influence mothers’ emotional availability during interactions with their own infants.
Copyright Date
4-26-2017
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
All Rights Reserved.
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by Elsevier. User is responsible for all copyright compliance. This article was originally published as:
Kim, P., Capistrano, C. G., Erhart, A., Gray-Schiff, R., & Xu, N. (2017). Socioeconomic disadvantage, neural responses to infant emotions, and emotional availability among first-time new mothers. Behavioural Brain Research, 325(Pt B), 188-196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2017.02.001
Rights Holder
Elsevier
Provenance
Received from CHORUS
Language
English (eng)
Publication Title
Behavioural Brain Research
Volume
325
Issue
Pt B
First Page
188
Last Page
196
ISSN
1872-7549
Recommended Citation
Kim, P., Capistrano, C. G., Erhart, A., Gray-Schiff, R., & Xu, N. (2017). Socioeconomic disadvantage, neural responses to infant emotions, and emotional availability among first-time new mothers. Behavioural Brain Research, 325(Pt B), 188-196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2017.02.001