TY - JOUR
T1 - Maternal hair cortisol predicts periodic and aperiodic infant frontal EEG activity longitudinally across infancy
AU - Brandes-Aitken, Annie
AU - Pini, Nicolò
AU - Weatherhead, Matthew
AU - Brito, Natalie H.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Wiley Periodicals LLC.
PY - 2023/7/1
Y1 - 2023/7/1
N2 - Maternal stress is known to be an important factor in shaping child development, yet the complex pattern of associations between stress and infant brain development remains understudied. To better understand the nuanced relations between maternal stress and infant neurodevelopment, research investigating longitudinal relations between maternal chronic physiological stress and infant brain function is warranted. In this study, we leveraged longitudinal data to disentangle between- from within-person associations of maternal hair cortisol and frontal electroencephalography (EEG) power at three time points across infancy at 3, 9, and 15 months. We analyzed both aperiodic power spectral density (PSD) slope and traditional periodic frequency band activity. On the within-person level, maternal hair cortisol was associated with a flattening of frontal PSD slope and an increase in relative frontal beta. However, on the between-person level, higher maternal hair cortisol was associated with steeper frontal PSD slope, increased relative frontal theta, and decreased relative frontal beta. The within-person findings may reflect an adaptive neural response to relative shifts in maternal stress levels, while the between-person results demonstrate the potentially detrimental effects of chronically elevated maternal stress. This analysis offers a novel, quantitative insight into the relations between maternal physiological stress and infant cortical function.
AB - Maternal stress is known to be an important factor in shaping child development, yet the complex pattern of associations between stress and infant brain development remains understudied. To better understand the nuanced relations between maternal stress and infant neurodevelopment, research investigating longitudinal relations between maternal chronic physiological stress and infant brain function is warranted. In this study, we leveraged longitudinal data to disentangle between- from within-person associations of maternal hair cortisol and frontal electroencephalography (EEG) power at three time points across infancy at 3, 9, and 15 months. We analyzed both aperiodic power spectral density (PSD) slope and traditional periodic frequency band activity. On the within-person level, maternal hair cortisol was associated with a flattening of frontal PSD slope and an increase in relative frontal beta. However, on the between-person level, higher maternal hair cortisol was associated with steeper frontal PSD slope, increased relative frontal theta, and decreased relative frontal beta. The within-person findings may reflect an adaptive neural response to relative shifts in maternal stress levels, while the between-person results demonstrate the potentially detrimental effects of chronically elevated maternal stress. This analysis offers a novel, quantitative insight into the relations between maternal physiological stress and infant cortical function.
KW - development
KW - EEG
KW - infant
KW - stress
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U2 - 10.1002/dev.22393
DO - 10.1002/dev.22393
M3 - Article
C2 - 37338255
AN - SCOPUS:85163921070
SN - 0012-1630
VL - 65
SP - e22393
JO - Developmental Psychobiology
JF - Developmental Psychobiology
IS - 5
ER -