394 - Effects of Maternal Anxiety and Depression on Behavior and Brain Network Development in Infants aged 0-2 months: An fNIRS Study

Poster Number: 394
Publication Number: 394.462

Background: Maternal anxiety and depression can severely interfere with mother-infant behavior and emotional communication, and adversely affect infant behavior and brain development. Currently, little research has been done on the effects of maternal anxiety and depression on behavioral and brain functional networks in infants aged 0-2 months.

Objective: To investigate whether maternal anxiety and depression can lead to changes in infant behavior and brain function.

Design/Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted among the maternal and infant patients who were followed up in the Neonatology Clinic of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi 'an Jiaotong University from July 20 to December 21, 2020. EPDS and SAS scales were used to screen mother‘s emotion, NBO was used to evaluate the infant behavior, and fNIRS was performed at the same time.A total of 47 mother-infant dyads met the inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Results: 1. The influence of maternal anxiety and depression on infant behavior:
1) The NBO score of the infants in the anxiety and depression group (36.05±6.03) was significantly lower than that in the control group (40.38±4.63) (P＜0.05).
2) The scores of stress response, muscle tone and responsiveness of the infants in the anxiety and depression group were lower than those in the control group (P < 0.05).
2. The effects of maternal anxiety and depression on the brain functional network of infants aged 0-2 months :
1) Channel-based analysis of resting-state brain functional connectivity revealed:
There were differences in the brain functional connectivity between the two groups in 40 channel pairs (P < 0.05), of which 15 were significantly different (P < 0.01), but the differences were not significant after FDR correction (P > 0.05).
2) Brain functional network analysis showed:
The two groups of real brain networks are better than random networks in the four parameters of Cp, Lp, E_loc and σ. Selecting the sparsity as 0.2 for further analysis, there is no significant difference between the two groups in the above 4 parameters. (P>0.05).

Conclusion(s): 1.Maternal Postpartum anxiety and depression are related to abnormal behavior of infants from 0 to 2 months, manifested in decreased autonomic nervous system stability, muscle tone, comfortability, and social skills.
2. The brain network of infants 0-2 months old has small-world properties, which is superior to random network. No changes in brain functional connectivity and brain network of infants with anxious and depressed mothers have been found.