Brain development
How prenatal stress and early birth affect the baby's brain
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Being born early and being exposed to maternal stress before birth both reduce the functional connections between the amygdala and other key brain regions in newborns.
How this study connects
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Early life stress, premature birth, and maternal metabolic factors can alter functional connectivity in the infant brain, affecting emotional and sensory-motor networks shortly after birth.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Preterm birth and exposure to maternal prenatal stress significantly weaken the resting-state functional connections between the amygdala and key subcortical structures like the brainstem, thalamus, and hypothalamus in neonates.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Maternal physiological and psychological states during pregnancy, including high body mass index and clinical stress, are associated with altered functional connectivity patterns in neonatal brain networks at birth.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cohort — Neonatal rs-fMRI amygdala connectivity; Cohort 1 very preterm vs term; Cohort 2 extremely preterm with chart-review prenatal stress
- N
- N=37 · Cohort 1: 12 preterm and 25 term; Cohort 2 extremely preterm enrolled 2012–2015 (exploratory)
- Population
- Very/extremely preterm neonates and healthy term controls
- Outcome
- Amygdala functional connectivity associated with prenatal maternal stress and preterm birth
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How prenatal stress and early birth affect the baby's brain
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12 preterm infants
This cohort has been previously published (, ) and includes 25 term controls and 12 preterm neonates.
10 extremely preterm infants
Twenty eight extremely preterm neonates met all inclusion criteria, and data from 10 extremely preterm neonates with prenatal stress exposure and 16 extremely preterm neonates with no stress exposure were analyzed after exclusion of 2 neonates due to motion artifact.
Key findings
Preterm infants showed weaker connections between the amygdala and subcortical areas like the brainstem, thalamus, and hypothalamus compared to full-term infants. Similarly, among extremely preterm infants, those exposed to prenatal maternal stress had even weaker amygdala connections to these same subcortical areas. Combining the groups suggested a cumulative effect where preterm infants exposed to prenatal stress exhibited the lowest overall amygdala connectivity.
Methodology
The researchers used resting-state functional MRI to study amygdala connections in different groups of newborn babies. In one group, they compared 12 very preterm infants scanned at term-equivalent age to 25 healthy full-term infants. In another group, they compared 10 extremely preterm infants whose mothers had a documented clinical diagnosis of anxiety or depression during pregnancy to 16 extremely preterm infants without this exposure.
Limitations
This study cannot establish a direct causal link between maternal stress and altered brain connectivity, nor can it separate the biological effects of stress from maternal anxiety or depression. The researchers relied on retrospective medical chart reviews to identify stress, meaning they may have missed undocumented stressors or mothers with untreated symptoms. Finally, because the cohorts were scanned on different MRI machines at different gestational ages, combining them is only exploratory and could be confounded by scanner-related imaging differences.
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