Depression can blunt a mother’s emotional response to her crying infant, reports a new study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
Researchers at the University of Oregon recruited 22 first-time mothers with 18-month-old babies. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the researchers monitored neural activity levels see how different regions of the mother’s brain responded to the sound of a crying baby.
For mothers with no diagnosis of depression, the MRI showed increased activity in the reward center of the brain when they heard the sound of an infant crying. The heightened brain activity was absent in the mothers with a chronic history of depression.
"It looks as though depressed mothers are not responding in a more negative way than non-depressed mothers, which has been one hypothesis,” said Dr. Heidemarie K. Laurent, lead author of the study. “What we saw was really more of a lack of responding in a positive way."
The researchers are concerned that depression could severely affect the mother-child bond, making the mother less responsive to emotional cues from their child.
"Some of these prefrontal problems may be changed more easily by addressing current symptoms, but there may be deeper, longer-lasting deficits at the motivational levels of the brain that will take more time to overcome," concluded Laurent.