Searched for: in-biosketch:yes
person:met260
Standards for Objectivity and Reproducibility in High-Impact Developmental Studies-The COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond
Thomason, Moriah E
PMID: 34901996
ISSN: 2168-6211
CID: 5109622
Maternal caregiving representations of the infant in the first year of life: Associations with prenatal and concurrent reflective functioning
Alismail, Fatimah; Stacks, Ann M; Wong, Kristyn; Brown, Suzanne; Beeghly, Marjorie; Thomason, Moriah
Few studies have examined whether maternal caregiving representations are associated with maternal reflective functioning (MRF), especially when MRF is evaluated longitudinally beginning in pregnancy. This study addresses this gap by evaluating whether prenatal and postnatal MRF are associated with mothers' caregiving representations assessed at 7 months postpartum, and by exploring theoretically unexpected MRF scores in each of the representational categories. Forty-seven mothers were recruited during their last trimester of pregnancy from an obstetrics clinic at a university hospital located in a large mid-western city in the United States. During pregnancy, mothers completed the Pregnancy Interview, and at 7 months postpartum they completed the Parent Development Interview (PDI) and the Working Model of the Child Interview. Results indicate that higher prenatal and postnatal MRF increased the odds of being classified as balanced versus disengaged. At 7 months, MRF also increased the odds of being balanced vs. distorted. Ten mothers who were classified as balanced or distorted had unexpected prenatal MRF scores, and six mothers had unexpected MRF scores when representations were assessed concurrently. Mothers classified as balanced with low MRF scores tended to have a low level of education, whereas mothers classified as distorted with high MRF scores had responses that were hostile, helpless, and role-reversed.
PMID: 34879170
ISSN: 1097-0355
CID: 5082892
Behavioral coping phenotypes and associated psychosocial outcomes of pregnant and postpartum women during the COVID-19 pandemic
Werchan, Denise M; Hendrix, Cassandra L; Ablow, Jennifer C; Amstadter, Ananda B; Austin, Autumn C; Babineau, Vanessa; Anne Bogat, G; Cioffredi, Leigh-Anne; Conradt, Elisabeth; Crowell, Sheila E; Dumitriu, Dani; Fifer, William; Firestein, Morgan R; Gao, Wei; Gotlib, Ian H; Graham, Alice M; Gregory, Kimberly D; Gustafsson, Hanna C; Havens, Kathryn L; Howell, Brittany R; Humphreys, Kathryn L; King, Lucy S; Kinser, Patricia A; Krans, Elizabeth E; Lenniger, Carly; Levendosky, Alytia A; Lonstein, Joseph S; Marcus, Rachel; Monk, Catherine; Moyer, Sara; Muzik, Maria; Nuttall, Amy K; Potter, Alexandra S; Salisbury, Amy; Shuffrey, Lauren C; Smith, Beth A; Smith, Lynne; Sullivan, Elinor L; Zhou, Judy; Thomason, Moriah E; Brito, Natalie H
The impact of COVID-19-related stress on perinatal women is of heightened public health concern given the established intergenerational impact of maternal stress-exposure on infants and fetuses. There is urgent need to characterize the coping styles associated with adverse psychosocial outcomes in perinatal women during the COVID-19 pandemic to help mitigate the potential for lasting sequelae on both mothers and infants. This study uses a data-driven approach to identify the patterns of behavioral coping strategies that associate with maternal psychosocial distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in a large multicenter sample of pregnant women (N = 2876) and postpartum women (N = 1536). Data was collected from 9 states across the United States from March to October 2020. Women reported behaviors they were engaging in to manage pandemic-related stress, symptoms of depression, anxiety and global psychological distress, as well as changes in energy levels, sleep quality and stress levels. Using latent profile analysis, we identified four behavioral phenotypes of coping strategies. Critically, phenotypes with high levels of passive coping strategies (increased screen time, social media, and intake of comfort foods) were associated with elevated symptoms of depression, anxiety, and global psychological distress, as well as worsening stress and energy levels, relative to other coping phenotypes. In contrast, phenotypes with high levels of active coping strategies (social support, and self-care) were associated with greater resiliency relative to other phenotypes. The identification of these widespread coping phenotypes reveals novel behavioral patterns associated with risk and resiliency to pandemic-related stress in perinatal women. These findings may contribute to early identification of women at risk for poor long-term outcomes and indicate malleable targets for interventions aimed at mitigating lasting sequelae on women and children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
PMCID:8786860
PMID: 35075202
ISSN: 2045-2322
CID: 5153202
Sex-specific effects of prenatal undernutrition on resting-state functional connectivity in the human brain at age 68
Boots, Amber; Thomason, Moriah E; Espinoza-Heredia, Claudia; Pruitt, Patrick J; Damoiseaux, Jessica S; Roseboom, Tessa J; de Rooij, Susanne R
Prenatal nutrition may significantly impact brain aging. Results from the Dutch Famine Birth Cohort indicated that prenatal undernutrition is negatively associated with cognition, brain volumes, perfusion and structural brain aging in late life, predominantly in men. This study investigates the association between prenatal undernutrition and late-life functional brain network connectivity. In an exploratory resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study of 112 participants from the Dutch Famine Birth Cohort, we investigated whether the within- and between-network functional connectivity of the default mode network, salience network and central executive network differ at age 68 in men (NÂ =Â 49) and women (NÂ =Â 63) either exposed or unexposed to undernutrition in early gestation. Additionally, we explored sex-specific effects. Compared to unexposed participants, exposed participants revealed multiple clusters of different functional connectivity within and between the three networks studied. Sex-specific analyses suggested a pattern of network desegregation fitting with brain aging in men and a more diffuse pattern of group differences in women. This study demonstrates that associations between prenatal undernutrition and brain network functional connectivity extend late into life.
PMID: 35151035
ISSN: 1558-1497
CID: 5157052
COVID-19 patient accounts of illness severity, treatments and lasting symptoms
Thomason, Moriah E; Werchan, Denise; Hendrix, Cassandra L
First-person accounts of COVID-19 illness and treatment can complement and enrich data derived from electronic medical or public health records. With patient-reported data, it is uniquely possible to ascertain in-depth contextual information as well as behavioral and emotional responses to illness. The Novel Coronavirus Illness Patient Report (NCIPR) dataset includes complete survey responses from 1,584 confirmed COVID-19 patients ages 18 to 98. NCIPR survey questions address symptoms, medical complications, home and hospital treatments, lasting effects, anxiety about illness, employment impacts, quarantine behaviors, vaccine-related behaviors and effects, and illness of other family/household members. Additional questions address financial security, perceived discrimination, pandemic impacts (relationship, social, stress, sleep), health history, and coping strategies. Detailed patient reports of illness, environment, and psychosocial impact, proximal to timing of infection and considerate of demographic variation, is meaningful for understanding pandemic-related public health from the perspective of those that contracted the disease.
PMID: 35013355
ISSN: 2052-4463
CID: 5118542
A survey of protocols from 54 infant and toddler neuroimaging research labs
Hendrix, Cassandra L; Thomason, Moriah E
Infant and toddler MRI enables unprecedented insight into the developing brain. However, consensus about optimal data collection practices is lacking, which slows growth of the field and impedes replication efforts. The goal of this study was to collect systematic data across a large number of infant/toddler research laboratories to better understand preferred practices. Survey data addressed MRI acquisition strategies, scan success rates, visit preparations, scanning protocols, accommodations for families, study design, and policies regarding incidental findings. Respondents had on average 8 years' experience in early life neuroimaging and represented more than fifty research laboratories. Areas of consensus across labs included higher success rates among newborns compared to older infants or toddlers, high rates of data loss across age groups, endorsement of multiple layers of hearing protection, and age-specific scan preparation and participant accommodation. Researchers remain divided on decisions in longitudinal study design and practices regarding incidental findings. This study summarizes practices honed over years of work by a large collection of scientists, which may serve as an important resource for those new to the field. The ability to reference data about best practices facilitates future harmonization, data sharing, and reproducibility, all of which advance this important frontier in developmental science.
PMCID:8762357
PMID: 35033971
ISSN: 1878-9307
CID: 5131252
Automated Brain Masking of Fetal Functional MRI with Open Data
Rutherford, Saige; Sturmfels, Pascal; Angstadt, Mike; Hect, Jasmine; Wiens, Jenna; van den Heuvel, Marion I; Scheinost, Dustin; Sripada, Chandra; Thomason, Moriah
Fetal resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) has emerged as a critical new approach for characterizing brain development before birth. Despite the rapid and widespread growth of this approach, at present, we lack neuroimaging processing pipelines suited to address the unique challenges inherent in this data type. Here, we solve the most challenging processing step, rapid and accurate isolation of the fetal brain from surrounding tissue across thousands of non-stationary 3D brain volumes. Leveraging our library of 1,241 manually traced fetal fMRI images from 207 fetuses, we trained a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) that achieved excellent performance across two held-out test sets from separate scanners and populations. Furthermore, we unite the auto-masking model with additional fMRI preprocessing steps from existing software and provide insight into our adaptation of each step. This work represents an initial advancement towards a fully comprehensive, open-source workflow, with openly shared code and data, for fetal functional MRI data preprocessing.
PMID: 34129169
ISSN: 1559-0089
CID: 4916432
Frontal Alpha Asymmetry in Response to Stressor Moderates the Relation Between Parenting Hassles and Child Externalizing Problems
Mulligan, Daniel J; Palopoli, Ava C; van den Heuvel, Marion I; Thomason, Moriah E; Trentacosta, Christopher J
Inequitable urban environments are associated with toxic stress and altered neural social stress processing that threatens the development of self-regulation. Some children in these environments struggle with early onset externalizing problems that are associated with a variety of negative long-term outcomes. While previous research has linked parenting daily hassles to child externalizing problems, the role of frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) as a potential modifier of this relationship has scarcely been explored. The present study examined mother-child dyads, most of whom were living in low socioeconomic status households in an urban environment and self-identified as members of racial minority groups. Analyses focused on frustration task electroencephalography (EEG) data from 67 children (mean age = 59.0 months, SD = 2.6). Mothers reported the frequency of their daily parenting hassles and their child's externalizing problems. Frustration task FAA moderated the relationship between parenting daily hassles and child externalizing problems, but resting FAA did not. More specifically, children with left frontal asymmetry had more externalizing problems as their mothers perceived more hassles in their parenting role, but parenting hassles and externalizing problems were not associated among children with right frontal asymmetry. These findings lend support to the motivational direction hypothesis and capability model of FAA. More generally, this study reveals how individual differences in lateralization of cortical activity in response to a stressor may confer differential susceptibility to child behavioral problems with approach motivation (i.e., left frontal asymmetry) predicting externalizing problems under conditions of parental stress.
PMCID:9294442
PMID: 35864992
ISSN: 1662-4548
CID: 5279362
Innovative methods for remote assessment of neurobehavioral development
Gustafsson, Hanna C; Young, Anna S; Stamos, Gayle; Wilken, Sydney; Brito, Natalie H; Thomason, Moriah E; Graham, Alice; Nigg, Joel T; Sullivan, Elinor L
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, research institutions across the globe have modified their operations in ways that have limited or eliminated the amount of permissible in-person research interaction. In order to prevent the loss of important developmentally-timed data during the pandemic, researchers have quickly pivoted and developed innovative methods for remote assessment of research participants. In this manuscript, we describe methods developed for remote assessment of a parent child cohort with a focus on examining the perinatal environment, behavioral and biological indicators of child neurobehavioral development, parent-child interaction, as well as parent and child mental and physical health. We include recommendations relevant to adapting in-laboratory assessments for remote data collection and conclude with a description of the successful dissemination of the methods to eight research sites across the United States, each of whom are involved in Phase 1 of the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study. These remote methods were born out of pandemic-related necessity; however, they have much wider applicability and may offer advantages over in-laboratory neurodevelopmental assessments.
PMCID:8483646
PMID: 34601346
ISSN: 1878-9307
CID: 5080002
Changes in social support of pregnant and postnatal mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic
Zhou, Judy; Havens, Kathryn L; Starnes, Catherine P; Pickering, Trevor A; Brito, Natalie H; Hendrix, Cassandra L; Thomason, Moriah E; Vatalaro, Tessa C; Smith, Beth A
OBJECTIVE:Our objectives were to assess in perinatal women: the most effective methods used to meet social support needs during COVID-19, the impact of COVID-19 on self-reported social support levels, and how perceived change in social support related to distress, depression, and mental health. DESIGN/METHODS:One-time survey administered from April to August 2020 SETTING: Online PARTICIPANTS: Pregnant and postpartum women with infants less than 6 months of age MEASUREMENT AND FINDINGS: Participants indicated the methods they used to meet social support needs during COVID-19. They self-rated their social support level pre- and during pandemic and their distress, depressive symptoms, and mental health changes on a Likert scale. Out of 1142 participants, the most effective methods for obtaining social support during the pandemic were virtual means (e.g. video call) and interaction with friends. There was a significant difference in distribution of self-reported levels of social support before and during the pandemic, with more respondents reporting a decrease in support. Decreases in social support were associated with higher distress levels, higher levels of depressive symptoms, and poorer mental health. KEY CONCLUSIONS/CONCLUSIONS:Perinatal women reported decreased social support during the COVID-19 pandemic which was associated with poorer mental health. Using virtual means of social support and support provided by friends had the largest positive effect on perceived social support levels. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE/CONCLUSIONS:Interventions using virtual support means from friends may be helpful to improve social support and mental health in this population.
PMCID:8485715
PMID: 34649034
ISSN: 1532-3099
CID: 5063122