Submission
| Title: | Parental Involvement is related to Parental Resilience & Offspring Neural Reward Prediction Error Signaling |
| Presenter: | Kathleen Crum |
| Institution: | Indiana University School of Medicine |
| Authors: | Kathleen I. Crum, PhD (Indiana University School of Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina), Joseph Aloi, MD, PHD (Indiana University School of Medicine), Katherine LeFevre (Indiana University School of Medicine), Mario Dzemidzic, PhD (Indiana University School of Medicine) & Leslie Hulvershorn, MD, MSc (Indiana University School of Medicine) |
Abstract
| Background/Significance/Rationale: | Parent mental health is related to children’s mental health across development. Intervention efforts for youth psychopathology often leverage parental involvement. However, parents of offspring with psychopathology often struggle with psychiatric risk factors themselves, such as difficulty with resilience following adversity. Reduced resilience in parents increases risk for psychopathology and dysfunctional parenting behaviors. In turn, dysfunctional parenting behaviors place offspring at risk for psychopathology. Our goal was to investigate the associations between parental resilience and parenting behaviors, and their relationship to their offspring’s reward neurocircuitry function; in particular, the reward prediction error (RPE) circuit, a transdiagnostic marker of psychopathology. |
| Methods: | N=26 parent-child dyads (child ages 10-14) were recruited. Parents reported on parenting behaviors using the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ), and resilience using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC). Children performed the Novelty task, a reward learning task, during fMRI scanning. Trial-by-trial RPEs were calculated based on a reinforcement learning model. Brain Regions of Interest (ROIs) including the nucleus accumbens, anterior putamen, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex were created (regions implicated in RPE representation). |
| Results/Findings: | The APQ parental involvement subscale was associated with increased negative affect tolerance (r=0.40, p<.05), personal competence (r=0.37, p=.06), and sense of control on the CD-RISC (r=0.37, p=.06). Parental involvement was also associated with increased offspring neural RPE representation within anterior putamen and nucleus accumbens (rs=0.44-0.61, ps<.05) during the Novelty task. |
| Conclusions/Discussion: | Parental resilience is associated with increased parental involvement. Parental involvement is associated with greater offspring neural RPE representation within bilateral striatum. However, findings must be replicated in larger samples with a formal mediation model. Overall, findings suggest that parental factors may impact neurocircuitries underlying psychopathology in offspring, and consequently, risk for offspring psychopathology. |
| Translational/Human Health Impact: | Interventions designed to increase parental resiliency may be helpful for reducing risk for psychopathology in offspring, perhaps by increasing parental involvement and neural RPE sensitivity in offspring. |
