Maternal antenatal depression and deviations from normative brain development in the offspring.

Background: Maternal mental health during pregnancy is important for optimal brain development in the offspring. Exposure to maternal depression in utero was associated with accelerated global cortical brain aging in young adulthood. However, it is not clear whether maternal antenatal depression (MAD) might also predict region-specific deviations from normative development of cortical thickness, surface area, and subcortical volume in the offspring and whether they stay stable throughout the third decade of life.

Methods: Two neuroimaging follow-ups of a prenatal birth cohort in young adulthood tested whether MAD might be associated with deviations from normative brain development in the offspring in the early and late 20s, as modeled using 37407 MRI images from individuals 3-90 years old (CentileBrain).

Results: MAD predicted deviations from normative development of thalamus and nucleus accumbens but not other subcortical volumes, surface area, or cortical thickness. Women exposed to greater MAD showed a smaller thalamus and nucleus accumbens in both the early and late 20s than expected based on the age- and sex normative means. In contrast, men exposed to greater MAD showed no deviations from the development of the thalamus but a larger nucleus accumbens in the late 20s than expected based on the age- and sex normative means.

Conclusions: Given the importance of thalamus in the pathogenesis of major depressive disorder and the critical role of nucleus accumbens in reward and motivation, the altered development of these subcortical structures might contribute to a higher risk of depression.