A better understanding of the development of depression can inform etiology and prevention/intervention. Maternal depression and maladaptive temperamental emotionality (e.g., low positive emotionality [PE] or high negative emotionality, especially sadness) are known to predict depression. While it is unclear how these risks cause depression, altered functional connectivity (FC), particularly during negative emotion processing, may play an important role. We investigated whether maternal depression and age-three emotionality predicted FC during negative mood reactivity in never-depressed preadolescents, and whether these predictive relationships were augmented by early life stress. Maternal depression was associated with decreased mPFC-amygdala and mPFC-insula FC, but increased mPFC-PCC FC. PE was associated with increased dlPFC-amygdala FC while sadness was related to increased PCC-based FC in insula, OFC, and ACC. Further, sadness was more strongly associated with PCC-insula and PCC-ACC FC as early stress increased. Findings indicate that early depression risks may be mediated by FC underlying negative emotion processing.
Early life stress modulates amygdala-prefrontal functional connectivity: Implications for oxytocin effects
