Persisting Effects of Prenatal Anxiety on Child Outcomes

产前焦虑对儿童结局的持续影响

• 批准号: 7049822
• 负责人: Thomas G O'Connor
• 金额: $ 44.85万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-06-01 至 2011-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7049822
• 关键词: British Isles; adolescence (12-20); behavioral /social science research tag; behavioral genetics; child mental disorders; child psychology; clinical research; corticosteroid receptors; cortisol; early experience; gene environment interaction; genetic susceptibility; human subject; hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis; immunologic techniques; longitudinal human study; outcomes research; prenatal stress; psychometrics; psychopathology; questionnaires; restriction fragment length polymorphism

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Experimental animal research strongly implicates prenatal stress in the long-term behavioral/emotional, cognitive, and neuroendocrine disturbance in offspring in a manner suggesting a programming mechanism. Recently reported data suggest that a parallel association may exist for prenatal anxiety in humans. The potential implications of these findings for understanding and preventing mental health problems in children and adults are both obvious and substantial. Basic questions remain, however, about the persistence of effects in humans, the mechanisms underlying the association, and the role of postnatal environmental experiences and genetic factors in accounting for individual variation. This proposal addresses these questions in the context of a unique multidisciplinary prospective, longitudinal study of a large community sample that has been continuously followed since early pregnancy. The study proposes to conduct in-person assessments of approximately 8,000 14 year-olds who have been followed since birth and for whom exposure to prenatal maternal anxiety and postnatal psychosocial adversity has been well-characterized. Data on psychopathology and HPA axis functioning at age 14 will be predicted from the interplay between previously collected data on maternal anxiety in pregnancy, specific psychosocial risks, and polymorphisms for the glucocorticoid receptor genes. The current study would provide a state-of-the-science investigation of prenatal anxiety that will have substantial impact on developmental theory and public health, and build on and extend research into the genetic bases of individual differences in stress vulnerability and psychopathology Specific aims of this research are to a) examine the long-term effects of prenatal anxiety on dimensional and diagnostic measures of psychopathology in early adolescence; b) assess the role of the HPA axis underlying the links between prenatal anxiety on adolescent psychopathology and stress vulnerability; c) test competing hypotheses concerning the processes by which prenatal anxiety has direct, mediated or moderated effects on adolescent psychopathology; and d) test the hypothesis that the effects of prenatal anxiety/stress on behavioral/emotional problems in early adolescence are moderated by genetic risk.

描述(由申请人提供)：实验动物研究强烈地表明，产前应激与后代长期的行为/情绪、认知和神经内分泌障碍有关，这种方式表明了一种编程机制。最近报道的数据表明，人类的产前焦虑可能存在平行的关联。这些发现对于理解和预防儿童和成人的心理健康问题的潜在影响是显而易见的和实质性的。然而，基本的问题仍然是关于影响在人类中的持久性，这种联系的基础机制，以及出生后环境经验和遗传因素在解释个体差异方面的作用。这项建议在一项独特的多学科前瞻性纵向研究的背景下解决了这些问题，该研究自怀孕早期以来一直在对大量社区样本进行跟踪。这项研究建议对大约8,000名14岁的青少年进行面对面评估，这些青少年自出生以来一直受到跟踪，他们出生前暴露在母亲焦虑和产后心理社会逆境中的特征得到了很好的描述。关于14岁时的精神病理学和HPA轴功能的数据将从之前收集的关于怀孕期间母亲焦虑的数据、特定的心理社会风险以及糖皮质激素受体基因的多态之间的相互作用来预测。目前的研究将对产前焦虑进行最新的科学调查，这将对发展理论和公共健康产生重大影响，并建立和扩大对应激脆弱性和精神病理学个体差异的遗传基础的研究。本研究的具体目的是：a)检查产前焦虑对青春期早期精神病理学的维度和诊断测量的长期影响；b)评估产前焦虑对青少年心理病理学和应激脆弱性之间联系的HPA轴的作用；c)检验关于产前焦虑对青少年心理病理学产生直接、中介或缓和影响的过程的相互竞争的假设；以及d)检验这样一种假设，即产前焦虑/压力对青春期早期行为/情感问题的影响受到遗传风险的影响。