A biomarker of brain arousal mediates the intergenerational link between maternal and child post-traumatic stress disorder.

Deiber, Marie-Pierre; Pointet Perizzolo, Virginie C; Moser, Dominik A.; Vital, Marylène; Rusconi Serpa, Sandra; Ros, Tomas; Schechter, Daniel S (2024). A biomarker of brain arousal mediates the intergenerational link between maternal and child post-traumatic stress disorder. Journal of psychiatric research, 177, pp. 305-313. Elsevier 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2024.07.034

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This study examined whether there is a biological basis in the child's resting brain activity for the intergenerational link between maternal interpersonal violence-related posttraumatic stress disorder (IPV-PTSD) and child subclinical symptoms. We used high-density EEG recordings to investigate the resting brain activity in a sample of 57 children, 34 from mothers with IPV-PTSD, and 23 from mothers without PTSD. These children were part of a prospective, longitudinal study focusing on the offspring of mothers with and without IPV-PTSD, reporting how the severity of a mother's IPV-PTSD can impact her child's emotional regulation and risk for developing mental illness. However, we had not yet looked into potential EEG biomarkers during resting state that might mediate and/or moderate effects of maternal IPV-PTSD severity on child mental health, and in particular the risk for PTSD. The alpha band spectral power as well as the aperiodic exponent of the power spectrum (PLE; power-law exponent) were examined as mediators of maternal IPV-PTSD and child PTSD. While there was no difference in alpha spectral power between the two groups, PLE was significantly reduced in children of mothers with IPV-PTSD compared to control children, indicating cortical hyper-arousal. Interestingly, child PLE was negatively correlated with the severity of maternal IPV-PTSD, suggesting an intergenerational interaction. This interpretation was reinforced by a negative correlation between child PLE and child PTSD symptoms. Finally, causal analyses using structural equation modelling indicated that child PLE mediated the relationship between maternal PTSD severity and child PTSD. Our observations suggest that maternal IPV-PTSD has an intergenerational impact on the child neurobehavioral development through a correlated abnormal marker of brain arousal (i.e. child PLE). These findings are potentially relevant to psychotherapy research and to the development of more effective psycho-neurobehavioral therapies (i.e. neurofeedback) among affected individuals.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology
07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology > Social Neuroscience and Social Psychology

UniBE Contributor:

Moser, Dominik

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology

ISSN:

1879-1379

Publisher:

Elsevier

Language:

English

Submitter:

Pubmed Import

Date Deposited:

29 Jul 2024 13:25

Last Modified:

05 Sep 2024 00:15

Publisher DOI:

10.1016/j.jpsychires.2024.07.034

PubMed ID:

39067254

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Aperiodic slope Intergenerational Maternal PTSD Neurodevelopment Resting EEG Spectral power

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/199347

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/199347

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