Date post: | 10-Feb-2017 |
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Health & Medicine |
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Can we identify biological markers of risk and resilience related to the intergenerational transmission of risk?
Andrea Gonzalez Offord Centre for Child Studies Department of Psychiatry & Behavioural Neurosciences
(Affifi et al., 2011; Cicchetti & Toth, 2005; Gilbert et al., 2009; Gonzalez, 2013)
Child Outcomes
G1
G2
Mechanism of Transmission
• In animals: proposed mechanisms are physiological and include changes in:
Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function, serotonergic function and changes in brain plasticity (Burton et al., 2007; Kaffman & Meaney, 2007; Maestripieri et al., 2007)
• In humans: proposed mechanisms have originated from social learning or attachment and include:
– Observational learning, role-modeling, and transmission via internal representations (Pullatz et al., 2004; Serbin & Karp, 2004; van IJzendoorn, 1992)
Executive Function
Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
Stroop/ Color-Word Inhibition
Set shifting/Cognitive Flexibility
Tower Test
Spatial planning/inhibition
Spatial span/digit span
Maternal early adversity
HPA function
Executive function
Maternal sensitivity
0.22** -0.22*
0.22*
-0.33**
*p<.05 **p< .01 χ2= 5.53; CFI = .98, RMSEA = .06
Gonzalez et al., 2012 JAACAP
Developing HPA axis is strongly influenced by social factors throughout infancy
In high-risk populations evidence of transmission of HPA activity to offspring: • Offspring of Holocaust survivors (with parental PTSD)
had significantly lower diurnal cortisol levels (Yehuda et al., 2006)
• Infants whose mothers developed PTSD after 9/11 had lower diurnal cortisol levels compared to infants with mothers without PTSD (Yehuda & Bierer, 2008)
Parenting and Infant Cortisol Reactivity
Atkinson et al., 2013; Psychoneuroendocrinology
Mothers and infants’ baseline cortisol levels were positively related, r = .53* and their slopes were positively related, r = .60*
Transmission of Executive Function?
3-months: Maternal history of childhood
maltreatment
8-months: Maternal executive
function and parenting
18-months:
Infant Cognition
3-years: Child
executive function
Gonzalez, Atkinson, & Fleming, 2009
Parenting Brain Recruits Multiple Systems
• Adaptive parenting requires a constellation of capacities including effective stress regulation, attentional control, emotion regulation and executive function.
Infant cues
EF performance
Early Adversity
• Recent imaging studies have implicated these same areas as vulnerable sites to the effects of early adversity, including the DLPFC, ACC, OFC, mPFC, the hippocampus and the amygdala (Hart & Rubia, 2012)
Summary
• Early adversity and its impact on biological systems may mediate or moderate deficits related to poor parenting and subsequent offspring outcomes
• Understanding the role that these systems plays may help in the understanding of the intergenerational transmission of risk
Intervention Implications • Psycho-educational
interventions is likely not be enough to improve parenting and child outcomes for all families
• Potential for innovative interventions to target underlying neurocognitive functions and stress system in parents and associated competencies in children
• Empirical question whether interventions should target these core capabilities explicitly or implicitly (Shonkoff & Fisher, 2014)
Acknowledgements: Collaborators, Staff, Students, and Participating Families
• Collaborators • Harriet MacMillan (McMaster) • Leslie Atkinson (Ryerson) • Susan Jack (McMaster) • Geoff Hall (McMaster) • Margaret McKinnon (McMaster) • Christine Wekerle (McMaster)
• Staff/students • Rebecca Lowe • Monica Ivan • Gillian-England Mason • Samantha Daniels
• All the mothers and infants who participated in the studies