Maternal Pregnancy-Related Anxiety Is Associated With Sexually Dimorphic Alterations in Amygdala Volume in 4-Year-Old Children.

ABSTRACT: Prenatal stress is associated with child behavioral outcomes increasing susceptibility for psychiatric disorders in later life. Altered fetal brain development might partly mediate this association, as some studies suggest. With this study, we investigated the relation between prenatal stress, child's brain structure and behavioral problems. The association between self-reported maternal pregnancy-related anxiety (PRAQ-R2 questionnaire, second and third trimester) and brain gray matter volume was probed in 27 4-year-old children (13 female). Voxel based morphometry was applied with an age-matched template in SPM for the whole-brain analyses, and amygdala volume was assessed with manual segmentation. Possible pre- and postnatal confounders, such as maternal depression and anxiety among othe

SUBMITTER: Acosta H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6691065 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature