Development of Attentional Biases for Affective Cues in Infants of Mothers with Depression - PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The link between depression in mothers and their children is well established, and there is growing evidence that children’s biased attention to facial displays of emotion – specifically, attentional avoidance of sad faces – may represent a key mechanism of risk that develops early in life. Despite the strengths of previous research, important questions remain. First, studies that have examined attentional biases in infants of mothers with depression have all been cross-sectional. Second, although researchers have proposed a key role for infant arousal in the development of these attentional biases (i.e., that attentional avoidance of sad faces serves to regulate infants’ arousal), this has not been explicitly tested. Third, published studies focus on the impact of mothers’ depression on infant outcomes. However, there are likely transactional influences between mothers and their infants. Fourth, depression is a heterogeneous and highly comorbid disorder, leaving unclear whether there are specific aspects of mothers’ depression presentation that are most strongly associated with the development of infants’ attentional biases. This study was designed to address these key questions and provide a more fine-grained understanding of a specific, early emerging mechanism of risk. The study will include a sample of 6–12-month-old infants of mothers with a history of MDD since the baby’s birth (n=150) or no lifetime history of MDD (n=75) with assessments every 3 months for 12 months (5 assessments total). Aim 1 is to prospectively examine the influence of depression in mothers on the development of infants’ attentional biases for facial displays of emotion using a combination of mother-infant interaction and computer-based tasks. This will allow us to determine whether depression in mothers predicts infants’ attentional avoidance of sad faces over their first two years of life. In addition to examining the influence of mothers’ depression broadly, we will also examine aspects of the depression presentation (facial affect and behavior) that may specifically predict the development of infants’ attention biases. Aim 2 is to examine infants’ arousal as a mechanism underlying their attentional avoidance of sad faces. To do this, we will measure dynamic changes in infants’ physiological activity time-locked to shifts in infants’ attention toward versus away from their mother during standardized mother-infant interaction tasks. Finally, although we are primarily focused on the impact of mothers on infants, we recognize that effects are almost certainly transactional, with infants’ attentional avoidance further increasing mothers’ depression. Aim 3 is to examine these transactional relations both within each assessment by focusing on changes in mothers’ facial affect during each interaction task and between assessments focusing on prospective changes in mothers’ depressive symptoms. This research will lead to a more detailed understanding of specific mechanisms by which depression in mothers impacts the developmental trajectory of infants’ attention to facial displays of emotion, which is not only implicated in future depression risk but is also important for infants’ broader short-term and long-term functioning.
