Maternal Depression, Child Temperament and Cortisol

描述(由申请人提供)：抑郁母亲的后代在以后的生活中患上行为和心理障碍的风险更高。虽然这种易感性的增加肯定有遗传因素，但婴儿和儿童的早期环境也可能在决定哪些人会患上疾病，哪些人不会。这里提出的实验是为了测量母亲在产前和/或产后抑郁的子女在婴儿期和童年早期的变化。除了评估儿童行为的变化外，还将研究母亲抑郁对儿童发展的潜在中介作用。提出的研究是独一无二的，因为它们是一项更大研究的一部分，而且受试者基础已经很好地描述了产前和产后抑郁(前瞻性)，以便可以区分终生病史、产前和产后抑郁的影响。测量母亲抑郁对后代的早期影响可能会揭示一些个体差异，这些差异可能会预测后来的损害。此外，由于已经收集了关于这一人群的一些数据，因此有可能观察抑郁母亲的婴儿和孩子的一些纵向变化。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Offspring of depressed mothers are at increased risk for developing behavior and psychological disorders later in life. Although there is certainly a genetic component for this increased vulnerability, it is also likely that the early environment of the infant and child plays a role in determining which individuals will develop disorders versus those that will not. The experiments proposed here were designed to measure changes in infancy through early childhood in offspring of mothers depressed during the prepartum and/or postpartum periods. In addition to assessing changes in child behavior, potential mediators of maternal depression on child development will be examined. The studies proposed are unique in that they are part of a larger study and the subject base is already very well characterized for both prepartum and postpartum depression (prospectively) such that the impact of lifetime history, prepartum and postpartum depression can be disentangled. Measuring early effects of maternal depression on offspring may shed some light on individual differences that may predict later impairment. In addition, since some data has already been collected on this population, it will be possible to look at some longitudinal changes in infants and children of depressed mothers.