Peripheral leptin receptor gene network modulates the impact of childhood adversity on mental health disorders.

Psychiatric disorders are highly prevalent and often co-morbid with metabolic syndrome. Exposure to adversity in early life is a risk factor for both metabolic and behavioral problems, modifying leptin metabolism and signaling. Leptin is not only an energy-balance regulator, being also associated with the development of affective disorders.

A new model to study season-of-conception effects on child neurodevelopment based on maternal history of seasonal affective disorder.

Season of birth/conception has been used to study neurodevelopmental risk in hundreds of studies, however the translational impact of this work remains limited. We propose a new model to study season-of- conception effects on neurodevelopment using maternal fall-winter seasonality as a key moderating variable, and provide initial empirical data to support this new approach. In an ongoing pregnancy cohort study we evaluated associations between season-of conception and maternal history of fall-winter Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) on child executive functioning in 520 children at age 54 months.

The association between maternal depression and anxiety symptoms during pregnancy and child sleep patterns at age 3 years.

Background: Childhood sleep problems are common and impact physical and emotional health. Prior work suggests that prenatal maternal depression and anxiety associate with disturbed child sleep in infancy. The current study evaluated whether these same associations extend to children at 3 years of age, and if so, whether the timing of symptoms in pregnancy is relevant.