Persisting Effects of Prenatal Anxiety on Child Outcomes

描述（由申请人提供）：实验动物研究强烈暗示产前压力在后代的长期行为/情绪，认知和神经内分泌紊乱的方式，建议编程机制。最近报道的数据表明，一个平行的协会可能存在产前焦虑在人类。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。然而，关于对人类的影响的持久性、相关机制以及产后环境经历和遗传因素在解释个体变异方面的作用，仍然存在一些基本问题。这项建议解决了这些问题的背景下，一个独特的多学科的前瞻性，纵向研究的大型社区样本，一直在持续跟踪自早孕。这项研究建议对大约8,000名14岁的儿童进行面对面评估，这些儿童自出生以来一直受到跟踪，并且对他们来说，产前母亲焦虑和产后心理社会逆境的暴露已经得到了很好的表征。关于14岁时精神病理学和HPA轴功能的数据将从先前收集的关于妊娠期母亲焦虑、特定心理社会风险和糖皮质激素受体基因多态性的数据之间的相互作用进行预测。目前的研究将提供一个国家的科学调查产前焦虑，将有重大影响的发展理论和公共卫生，并建立和扩展研究的遗传基础的个体差异，在压力脆弱性和精神病理学。本研究的具体目标是：a）检查长期影响产前焦虑的维度和诊断措施的精神病理学在青春期早期; B）评估HPA轴在产前焦虑对青少年精神病理学和压力脆弱性之间联系的基础上的作用; c）测试关于产前焦虑对青少年精神病理学具有直接、介导或调节作用的过程的竞争性假设; d）测试产前焦虑/压力对青春期早期行为/情感问题的影响由遗传风险调节的假设。

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.