Pre- and postnatal maternal depressive symptoms associate with local connectivity of the left amygdala in 5-year-olds

Maternal pre- and postnatal depressive symptoms influence brain development in offspring through intrauterine conditions as well as ways of parenting and mother–child interaction. This study investigated whether maternal perinatal depressive symptoms associate with child’s whole brain regional homogeneity (ReHo) and seed-based connectivity of the bilateral amygdala at 5 years of age based on the sample available from FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study (N = 68; 40 female). Maternal depressive symptoms were assessed with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) at gestational week 24, 3, 6, and 12 months postnatal. Children’s brain imaging data were acquired with task-free functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at the age of 5 years in 7 min scans while watching the Inscapes movie. The ReHo and seed-based connectivity maps of the bilateral amygdalae were created from the fMRI data. We found that maternal depressive symptoms were positively associated with ReHo values of the left amygdala (p < 0.001, FDR corrected). The association was strongest with the maternal depressive symptoms at three months postnatal. Seed-based connectivity analysis did not reveal associations between distal connectivity of the left amygdala region and maternal depressive symptoms. These results suggest that maternal depressive symptoms during pregnancy and especially soon after birth may influence offspring’s neurodevelopment related to emotional processing and may raise the risk of vulnerability of intergenerational transmission for depression.Figure. ReHo values of the left amygdala associate positively with EPDS sum scores at 3 months postnatal (p < 0.001, FDR corrected). The color bars depict t-values.