Structure-function coupling in the first month of life: Associations with age and attention.

How brain structure relates to function is a critical and open question in neuroscience. Here, we characterize regional variation in structure-function coupling, capturing the degree to which a cortical region's structural connections relate to patterns of coordinated neural activity in healthy, term-born neonates ( = 239). Regional structure-function coupling is heterogeneously patterned across the cortex, with higher coupling in the auditory, lateral prefrontal, and inferior parietal cortices.

Prenatal Adversity and Neonatal White Matter Microstructure Independently Relate to Language Outcomes at Age 2 Years.

Objective: To examine the mediating and moderating associations between prenatal exposure to adversity and neonatal white matter (WM) development on language outcomes at age 2 years.

Study Design: This longitudinal study includes 160 infants (gestational ages 41 - 39 weeks, n = 83; 38 - 37 weeks, n = 62; 36 - 34 weeks, n = 15) with neonatal diffusion MRI and language assessments at age 2 years using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-III. Prenatal social disadvantage (PSD) and maternal psychosocial stress were assessed throughout the prenatal period.

Prenatal Adversity and Neonatal Brain Connectivity Relate to Emerging Executive Function at Age 2 Years.

Objective: Early life adversity alters the structure and function of higher-order brain networks that subserve executive function (EF). The extent that prenatal exposure to adversity and neonatal white matter (WM) microstructure and resting-state functional connectivity (rs-fc) underlie problems in emerging EF remains unclear.

Method: This prospective study includes 164 infants (45% female, 85% term-born) who were recruited prenatally and underwent neonatal diffusion and rs-fc magnetic resonance imaging scans.

Prenatal social disadvantage is associated with alterations in functional networks at birth.

Childhood exposure to social disadvantage is a major risk factor for psychiatric disorders and poor developmental, educational, and occupational outcomes, presumably because adverse exposures alter the neurodevelopmental processes that contribute to risk trajectories. Yet, given the limited social mobility in the United States and other countries, childhood social disadvantage is frequently preceded by maternal social disadvantage during pregnancy, potentially altering fetal brain development during a period of high neuroplasticity through hormonal, microbiome, epigenetic, and immune factors that cross the placenta and fetal blood-brain barrier. The current study examines prenatal social disadvantage to determine whether these exposures in utero are associated with alterations in functional brain networks as early as birth.

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Socioemotional Outcomes of Children Born Very Preterm.

Objective: To examine whether adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) confer risk for socioemotional problems in children born very preterm (VPT).

Study Design: As part of a longitudinal study, 96 infants born VPT at 23-30 weeks of gestation were recruited from a level III neonatal intensive care unit and underwent follow-up at ages 2 and 5 years. Eighty-three full-term (FT) (37-41 weeks gestation) children were recruited from an adjoining obstetric service and the local community.

Children born very preterm experience altered cortical expansion over the first decade of life.

The brain develops rapidly from the final trimester of gestation through childhood, with cortical surface area expanding greatly in the first decade of life. However, it is unclear exactly where and how cortical surface area changes after birth, or how prematurity affects these developmental trajectories. Fifty-two very preterm (gestational age at birth = 26 ± 1.

Prenatal environment is associated with the pace of cortical network development over the first three years of life.

Environmental influences on brain structure and function during early development have been well-characterized, but whether early environments are associated with the pace of brain development is not clear. In pre-registered analyses, we use flexible non-linear models to test the theory that prenatal disadvantage is associated with differences in trajectories of intrinsic brain network development from birth to three years (n = 261). Prenatal disadvantage was assessed using a latent factor of socioeconomic disadvantage that included measures of mother's income-to-needs ratio, educational attainment, area deprivation index, insurance status, and nutrition.

Associations between Parenting and Cognitive and Language Abilities at 2 Years of Age Depend on Prenatal Exposure to Disadvantage.

Objective: To investigate whether parenting or neonatal brain volumes mediate associations between prenatal social disadvantage (PSD) and cognitive/language abilities and whether these mechanisms vary by level of disadvantage.

Study Design: Pregnant women were recruited prospectively from obstetric clinics in St Louis, Missouri. PSD encompassed access to social (eg, education) and material (eg, income to needs, health insurance, area deprivation, and nutrition) resources during pregnancy.

Associations between prenatal adversity and neonatal white matter microstructure on language outcomes at age 2 years.

Background: Early life adversity is associated with microstructural alterations in white matter regions that subserve language. However, the mediating and moderating pathways between adversities experienced and key neonatal white matter tracts including the corpus callosum (CC), superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), arcuate fasciculus (AF), inferior fronto- occipital fasciculus (IFOF), and uncinate on early language outcomes remains unknown.

Methods: This longitudinal study includes 160 neonates, oversampled for prenatal exposure to adversity, who underwent diffusion MRI (dMRI) in the first weeks of life.

Characteristics of women concordant and discordant for urine drug screens for cannabis exposure and self-reported cannabis use during pregnancy.

Background: Increasing cannabis use among pregnant people and equivocal evidence linking prenatal cannabis exposure to adverse outcomes in offspring highlights the need to understand its potential impact on pregnancy and child outcomes. Assessing cannabis use during pregnancy remains a major challenge with potential influences of stigma on self-report as well as detection limitations of easily collected biological matrices.

Objective: This descriptive study examined the concordance between self-reported (SR) cannabis use and urine drug screen (UDS) detection of cannabis exposure during the first trimester of pregnancy and characterized concordant and discordant groups for sociodemographic factors, modes of use, secondhand exposure to cannabis and tobacco, and alcohol use and cotinine positivity.

Maternal prenatal social disadvantage and neonatal functional connectivity: Associations with psychopathology symptoms at age 12 months.

Recent research has reported effects of socioeconomic status on neurobehavioral development as early as infancy, including positive associations between income and brain structure, functional connectivity, and behavior later in childhood (Ramphal, Whalen, et al., 2020; Triplett et al., 2022).

Prenatal exposure to maternal disadvantage-related inflammatory biomarkers: associations with neonatal white matter microstructure.

Prenatal exposure to heightened maternal inflammation has been associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, including atypical brain maturation and psychiatric illness. In mothers experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage, immune activation can be a product of the chronic stress inherent to such environmental hardship. While growing preclinical and clinical evidence has shown links between altered neonatal brain development and increased inflammatory states in utero, the potential mechanism by which socioeconomic disadvantage differentially impacts neural-immune crosstalk remains unclear.

Newborn Brain Function and Early Emerging Callous-Unemotional Traits.

Importance: Children with high callous-unemotional traits are more likely to develop severe and persistent conduct problems; however, the newborn neurobiology underlying early callous-unemotional traits remains unknown. Understanding the neural mechanisms that precede the development of callous-unemotional traits could help identify at-risk children and encourage development of novel treatments.

Objective: To determine whether newborn brain function is associated with early-emerging empathy, prosociality, and callous-unemotional traits.

Neighborhood Crime and Externalizing Behavior in Toddlers: A Longitudinal Study With Neonatal fMRI and Parenting.

Objective: Prenatal exposure to neighborhood crime has been associated with weaker neonatal frontolimbic connectivity; however, associations with early childhood behavior remain unclear. We hypothesized that living in a high-crime neighborhood would be related to higher externalizing symptoms at age 1 and 2 years, over and above other adversities, and that neonatal frontolimbic connectivity and observed parenting behaviors at 1 year would mediate this relationship.

Method: Participants included 399 pregnant women, recruited as part of the Early Life Adversity, Biological Embedding, and Risk for Developmental Precursors of Mental Disorders (eLABE) study.

Neonatal neural responses to novelty related to behavioral inhibition at 1 year.

Behavioral inhibition (BI), an early-life temperament characterized by vigilant responses to novelty, is a risk factor for anxiety disorders. In this study, we investigated whether differences in neonatal brain responses to infrequent auditory stimuli relate to children's BI at 1 year of age. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we collected blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) data from = 45 full-term, sleeping neonates during an adapted auditory oddball paradigm and measured BI from = 27 of these children 1 year later using an observational assessment.

The Association Between Maternal Cortisol and Infant Amygdala Volume Is Moderated by Socioeconomic Status.

Background: It has been well established that socioeconomic status is associated with mental and physical health as well as brain development, with emerging data suggesting that these relationships begin in utero. However, less is known about how prenatal socioeconomic environments interact with the gestational environment to affect neonatal brain volume.

Methods: Maternal cortisol output measured at each trimester of pregnancy and neonatal brain structure were assessed in 241 mother-infant dyads.

Social and psychological adversity are associated with distinct mother and infant gut microbiome variations.

Health disparities are driven by underlying social disadvantage and psychosocial stressors. However, how social disadvantage and psychosocial stressors lead to adverse health outcomes is unclear, particularly when exposure begins prenatally. Variations in the gut microbiome and circulating proinflammatory cytokines offer potential mechanistic pathways.

Prenatal exposure to maternal social disadvantage and psychosocial stress and neonatal white matter connectivity at birth.

Early life adversity (social disadvantage and psychosocial stressors) is associated with altered microstructure in fronto-limbic pathways important for socioemotional development. Understanding when these associations begin to emerge may inform the timing and design of preventative interventions. In this longitudinal study, 399 mothers were oversampled for low income and completed social background measures during pregnancy.

Parental ADHD and ASD symptoms and contributions of psychosocial risk to childhood ADHD and ASD symptoms in children born very preterm.

Objectives: Examine maternal and paternal ADHD and ASD symptoms in relation to very preterm (VPT) and full-term (FT) children's ADHD and ASD symptoms.

Study Design: In this longitudinal study, maternal- and teacher-report of child ADHD and ASD symptoms were obtained for 119 children (VPT = 79, FT = 40) at age 5-years using the Conner's Rating Scale-Revised (CRS-R) and Social Responsiveness Scale-2 (SRS-2). A biological parent completed self- and observer-report CRS-R and SRS-2, and measures of mood/affect, stress, and social support to assess psychosocial distress.

Maturation of large-scale brain systems over the first month of life.

The period immediately after birth is a critical developmental window, capturing rapid maturation of brain structure and a child's earliest experiences. Large-scale brain systems are present at delivery, but how these brain systems mature during this narrow window (i.e.

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Network Neurobehavioral Scale Profiles in Full-Term Infants: Associations with Maternal Adversity, Medical Risk, and Neonatal Outcomes.

Objectives: To examine healthy, full-term neonatal behavior using the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Network Neurobehavioral Scale (NNNS) in relation to measures of maternal adversity, maternal medical risk, and infant brain volumes.

Study Design: This was a prospective, longitudinal, observational cohort study of pregnant mothers followed from the first trimester and their healthy, full-term infants. Infants underwent an NNNS assessment and high-quality magnetic resonance imaging 2-5 weeks after birth.

The Effects of Prenatal Exposure to Neighborhood Crime on Neonatal Functional Connectivity.

Background: Maternal exposure to adversity during pregnancy has been found to affect infant brain development; however, the specific effect of prenatal crime exposure on neonatal brain connectivity remains unclear. Based on existing research, we hypothesized that living in a high-crime neighborhood during pregnancy would affect neonatal frontolimbic connectivity over and above other individual- and neighborhood-level adversity and that these associations would be mediated by maternal psychosocial stress.

Methods: Participants included 399 pregnant women, recruited as part of the eLABE (Early Life Adversity, Biological Embedding, and Risk for Developmental Precursors of Mental Disorders) study.

Association of Prenatal Exposure to Early-Life Adversity With Neonatal Brain Volumes at Birth.

Importance: Exposure to early-life adversity alters the structural development of key brain regions underlying neurodevelopmental impairments. The association between prenatal exposure to adversity and brain structure at birth remains poorly understood.

Objective: To examine whether prenatal exposure to maternal social disadvantage and psychosocial stress is associated with neonatal global and regional brain volumes and cortical folding.

Socioeconomic disadvantage and parental mood/affective problems links negative parenting and executive dysfunction in children born very preterm.

Poverty increases the risk of poorer executive function (EF) in children born full-term (FT). Stressors associated with poverty, including variability in parenting behavior, may explain links between poverty and poorer EF, but this remains unclear for children born very preterm (VPT). We examine socioeconomic and parental psychosocial adversity on parenting behavior, and whether these factors independently or jointly influence EF in children born VPT.