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Maternal Stress Resilience During Pregnancy and Offspring Emotion Regulation

Award Number: K01MH123505
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: TRAINING/TRAINEESHIP
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 03/01/2022
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 02/28/2026

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Maternal Stress Resilience During Pregnancy and Offspring Emotion Regulation - PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Evidence shows that maternal stress exposure during pregnancy can have enduring effects on offspring emotion regulation (ER), a transdiagnostic factor underlying the development of psychopathology. Although low-income and minority race women are more likely to experience daily recurring stressors, significant variability exists in the way individuals respond to stressors during pregnancy. Few studies have focused on identifying modifiable, protective factors during pregnancy that explain these individual differences, a critical step to informing preventative interventions. Guided by resilience theories, this study takes a daily-life approach to investigate the prospective association between maternal stress regulation during pregnancy and infant ER. The central hypothesis is that day-to-day fluctuations in prenatal psychosocial resources (social support, self-efficacy) will have a protective influence on daily maternal stress regulation during pregnancy (Aim 1) that, in turn, shapes infant ER outcomes (Aim 2). The study will recruit pregnant participants (N=90) with a history of chronic stress from the Pittsburgh Girls Study (ECHO-PGS; UH3OD023244), a longitudinal cohort of women currently aged 24-27 (71% Black; 79% low-income) who have been assessed annually since childhood. Participants will complete a prenatal lab visit, 10 days of ambulatory data collection, and a postnatal lab visit when their infant is 6-months old. This study will leverage available prenatal and infant data from the ECHO-PGS while adding state-of-the-art ambulatory measures (smartphone, wearable biosensing devices) to measure real-world changes in daily stressful events, stress regulation, and psychosocial resources during pregnancy, in addition to adding new physiological measures of ER in infancy. Dr. Tung, the award candidate, is a developmental psychopathologist with significant experience conducting longitudinal research in the lab- setting from middle childhood through early adulthood. In this K01, the candidate will gain targeted conceptual and methodological training in: (1) ER during infancy, when regulatory processes are emerging and sensitive to stress transmission, (2) ambulatory measures of daily prenatal stress regulation outside the lab setting, and (3) advanced statistical approaches for intensive longitudinal data. Dr. Tung’s mentors (Drs. Hipwell, Low, and Smyth) and consultants (Drs. Fox and Krafty) are ideally suited to guide the candidate’s training given their combined expertise in the fields of prenatal stress, infant affective and physiological regulation, ambulatory assessment, and intensive longitudinal data analytics. As a leading research institution, the University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychiatry is an optimal scientific training environment to meet these career development goals. The proposed K01 is the first step in a larger program of independent research that will focus on prenatal stress and resilience factors underlying transdiagnostic vulnerability to psychopathology. This line of work has the potential to advance the field by elucidating resilience processes during sensitive windows of development to inform early preventative interventions.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $166,609 )
2025	2025	CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, DOMINGUEZ HILLS FOUNDATION	1000 E VICTORIA ST	CARSON	CA	90747	LOS ANGELES	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	5	2/13/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$166,609
														Subtotal = $166,609

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $167,042 )
2024	2024	CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, DOMINGUEZ HILLS FOUNDATION	1000 E VICTORIA ST	CARSON	CA	90747	LOS ANGELES	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	4	2/22/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$167,042
														Subtotal = $167,042

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $166,252 )
2023	2023	CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY DOMINGUEZ HILLS FOUNDATION	1000 E VICTORIA ST	CARSON	CA	90747	LOS ANGELES	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	3	2/28/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$166,252
														Subtotal = $166,252

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $169,431 )
2022	2022	CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY DOMINGUEZ HILLS FOUNDATION	1000 E VICTORIA ST	CARSON	CA	90747	LOS ANGELES	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	001	2	3/29/2022	CHANGE OF GRANTEE / TRAINING INSTITUTION / AWARDING INSTITUTION	$169,431
2022	2022	CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY DOMINGUEZ HILLS FOUNDATION	1000 E VICTORIA ST	CARSON	CA	90747	LOS ANGELES	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	003	2	7/19/2022	CHANGE OF GRANTEE / TRAINING INSTITUTION / AWARDING INSTITUTION	$34,136
2022	2021	UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, THE	4200 5TH AVE	PITTSBURGH	PA	15260	ALLEGHENY	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	1	3/28/2022	NEW	$0
2022	2021	UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH - OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION	4200 FIFTH AVENUE	PITTSBURGH	PA	15260	ALLEGHENY	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	002	1	7/19/2022	NEW	-$34,136
														Subtotal = $169,431

Issue Date FY: 2021 ( Subtotal = $170,399 )
2021	2021	UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE	3520 FIFTH AVE	PITTSBURGH	PA	15213	ALLEGHENY	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	1	2/24/2021	NEW	$170,399
														Subtotal = $170,399

Grand Total All Awards = $839,733

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Maternal Stress Resilience During Pregnancy and Offspring Emotion Regulation

Award Number: K01MH123505

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: TRAINING/TRAINEESHIP

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 03/01/2022

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 02/28/2026

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