The Association between EEG Asymmetry and Negative Affectivity in Infants of Depressed Mothers Open Access

Cho, Soo-Hyun (2010)

Permanent URL: https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/1n79h453r?locale=en
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Abstract

Abstract
The Association between EEG Asymmetry and Negative Affectivity in Infants of Depressed Mothers
By Soo Hyun Cho

The present study extended prior research on the effect of maternal depression on the infants' vulnerabilities to develop depression by examining predictors of vulnerabilities in two domains of functioning. Recently, research showed that infants who index more than a single vulnerability are most likely to develop psychopathology, particularly if the multiple vulnerabilities cross biological and affective domains. We considered how prenatal and postpartum depression might be associated with infants' interacting vulnerabilities of electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry and the temperament domain of negative affectivity, and whether infants whose mothers are depressed both pre- and postnatally may be at highest risk. Participants were 46 women with a history of Major Depressive Episode or an anxiety disorder, who were studied during pregnancy or postpartum through 3 months and their 3-month-old infants. When the infants were 3-months-old, mothers completed the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (IBQ-R) and infant EEG activity was recorded. For the sample as a whole, the correlation between relative right frontal EEG activity and negative affectivity was small and not statistically significant. In addition, concurrent maternal depressive symptom levels did not have an effect on the degree of association between the two variables. However, infants of mothers who were either prenatally depressed or postpartum depressed showed a small, albeit non significant correlation in the expected direction, consistent with the idea that exposure to perinatal depression may increase the likelihood of interacting vulnerabilities to developing depression.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction...1

Method...16

Results...26

Discussion...29

References...35

Tables 1-2...45

Descriptive Statistics on Core Variables.

Partial Correlation Adjusted for BDI, between EEG Asymmetry and Negative Affectivity.

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