Mechanisms of Intergenerational Impact of Maternal Trauma

描述（由申请人提供）：有童年虐待史的成年人特别容易在成年后发展出与压力相关的精神病理学。虽然许多研究都集中在长期的负面后果的童年虐待整个生命的虐待儿童，令人惊讶的是，很少有研究审查的影响，童年虐待跨代或其跨代影响的机制。研究表明，母亲在童年时受到虐待的儿童在成年后患上与压力有关的心理障碍的风险更大，生活在压力环境中的母亲遭受虐待、养育子女能力受损和心理障碍的风险更大。考虑到生活在低收入城市环境中的家庭的环境压力水平升高，我们描述创伤如何在这些人群中跨代传播尤为重要。为了解决文献中的这一差距，我们建议收集400个低收入，城市，非洲裔美国人的母亲和他们的9-12岁的后代的数据。我们将在基线和基线后9个月和18个月收集数据。拟议的研究将侧重于母亲的影响和影响调节，以及母亲养育和母亲压力反应生物标志物作为中间表型，可能有助于增加受虐待母亲的子女的代际风险。我们还将研究儿童暴露于创伤，邻里暴力和压力的作用。我们预计，这项研究将大大有助于发展以经验为基础的干预和预防方法，旨在提高弹性和降低风险，在这一人群。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Adults with histories of childhood abuse are particularly vulnerable to the development of stress- related psychopathology in adulthood. Although much research has focused on long-term negative sequel of childhood abuse across the lifespan of the abused child, surprisingly little research has examined the impact of childhood abuse across generations or the mechanisms of its trans-generational impact. Research demonstrates that children of mothers who were abused in childhood are at increased risk for stress related psychological disorders in adulthood and that mothers living in stressful environments are at increased risk for child maltreatment, impaired parenting and psychological disorders. Given the elevated levels of environmental stressors for families living in low-income, urban environments, it is particularly critical that we delineate how trauma is transmitted across generations in these populations. In order to address this gap in the literature, we propose to collect data on 400 low-income, urban, African American mothers and their 9-12 year old offspring. We will gather data at baseline and at 9 and 18 months post baseline. The proposed research will focus on maternal affect and affect regulation, and on maternal parenting and maternal stress response biomarkers as intermediate phenotypes that may contribute to increased intergenerational risk in children of maltreated mothers. We will also examine the role of child exposure to trauma, neighborhood violence and stress. We anticipate that this research will contribute significantly to the development of empirically grounded intervention and prevention approaches aimed at increasing resilience and decreasing risk in this population.