Benjamin L. Hankin

Prenatal maternal depression may have intergenerational effects on offspring brain development, with potential socioemotional consequences. This observational follow-up study examines brain development and subsequent negative emotionality among 109 infants born to mothers participating in a randomized clinical trial (NCT03011801). In the prior trial, brief interpersonal psychotherapy significantly reduced prenatal depression symptoms and disorder as the published primary and secondary endpoints. Exploratory infant outcomes include hippocampal and amygdala volumes at 6 weeks and negative emotionality at 6 months. Here we show that infants of mothers randomized to interpersonal psychotherapy during pregnancy have lower right hippocampal volume than infants of mothers in the enhanced usual care group ( p = .002, d = 0.62). No statistically significant group differences are observed in left hippocampal or amygdala volume. Smaller hippocampal volume predicts subsequent lower negative emotionality (r = 0.19, p = 0.045). In this study, a maternal prenatal depression intervention is associated with differences in infant brain development with implications for their subsequent emotional health.

Early (before age 6) potentially traumatic events (PTEs) may interact with hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis functioning to shape outcomes involving externalizing problems and anxiety. However, directions of effects remain unclear. This study examined associations between aspects of HPA axis reactivity, anxiety, and externalizing problems over two years by early PTE exposure history, while statistically capturing the co-occurrence of symptom domains. Youth ( N = 189; M _age = 10.96 years, SD = 2.51, Range = 8–15; 52.4% female, 47.1% male; 50.3% White, 35.4% Black/African American, 6.4% Other; 7.4% Hispanic/Latine) were included if they had early PTE exposure ( n = 107) or had never experienced a PTE ( n = 82). HPA axis reactivity to social stress was calculated using area under the curve with respect to ground (AUCg) and increase (AUCi). For youth with early PTE exposure, higher AUCg was concurrently associated with more externalizing symptoms and greater predominance of externalizing over anxiety. Blunted AUCi predicted increasing predominance of externalizing for the early PTE group, but elevated AUCi predicted increases in anxiety for the no PTE group. Findings highlight distinct roles of overall and reactive HPA axis functioning in shaping outcomes following early trauma.

People hold strong beliefs about emotions. One particularly important belief is whether emotions should be controlled or emotion control beliefs. We examine these beliefs in parents, specifically, the role these beliefs play in their children's well-being and the parent-child relationship. We propose that parents with stronger emotion control beliefs respond less supportively and more disapprovingly to their children's negative emotions, which in turn could predict worse child well-being and lower parent-child relationship quality. In Study 1 (N_parent = 272), we found that parents' emotion control beliefs were cross-sectionally linked with worse child well-being. This relationship was accounted for by parents providing less supportive and more disapproving responses to their children's emotions. In Study 2 (preregistered analyses; N_parent = 272, N_adolescent = 275), we found that parents' emotion control beliefs were cross-sectionally, but not longitudinally (18 months later), linked with some, but not all, measures of parent- and adolescent-reported worse child well-being and lower parent-child relationship quality. In Study 3 (N_parent = 139), we found that parents' emotion control beliefs longitudinally (4 months later) predicted worse child well-being and lower parent-child relationship quality. These links were accounted for by parents providing less supportive and more disapproving responses to their children's emotions. Moreover, these links were relatively generalizable across parents' and children's gender and age (Studies 1-3) as well as parents' ethnicity (Study 3). Together, these findings suggest that parents' emotion control beliefs may influence how they respond to their children's emotions-often for the worse-subsequently shaping the child's well-being and the quality of the parent-child relationship. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

The transition from childhood to adolescence is a period of social-emotional reorganization involving changes in affect. Most research has examined developmental changes in between-person affect. Few studies have investigated developmental changes in associations between individual emotions and the structure of affective experience in youth across developmental age. This study used exploratory graph analysis to assess developmental changes in emotional complexity using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule administered at three time points from 2007 to 2013 in a three-cohort, accelerated longitudinal design spanning Grades 3 through 12 (N = 682): late childhood, M_age = 9.39, SD = 0.53; early adolescence, M_age = 11.80, SD = 0.67; and middle adolescence, M_age = 14.60, SD = 0.60. Decreases in edge density and entropy and increases in R² were identified across development. In contrast, nonlinear shifts were found for the number of negative edges between affective dimensions and mean absolute error and possible shifts in dimensionality. Results suggest that global network metrics support decreases in emotional complexity from childhood through adolescence, though other indices suggest distinct patterns of change. Implications for research and study limitations are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Pregnancy and postpartum are times of increased risk for a variety of mental health problems. Historically, these symptoms have been conceptualized via ostensibly distinct, consensus-based diagnostic categories. However, applying an empirically based, dimensional approach to psychiatric classification may significantly advance understanding of common and specific risk factors during this highly dynamic period. In the present study, we used exploratory psychometric methods to examine the structure of psychopathology symptoms from the "bottom-up" or using symptom-level co-occurrence to derive common factors in a sample of individuals (N = 347) across earlier pregnancy (M = 17.4 weeks gestation), later pregnancy (M = 34.6 weeks gestation), and postpartum (M = 25.3 weeks postpartum). We examined changes (or invariance) in symptom structure longitudinally. Results demonstrated a hierarchical structure of symptoms including a robust broad distress factor at the highest level, followed by replicable internalizing and externalizing factors. The best lower-order solutions included eight to nine factors at each timepoint. Across earlier to later pregnancy and postpartum, psychopathology structure showed both significant invariance and nuanced changes, indicating that perinatal symptom factors are largely robust, while the structure of select subfactors (e.g., low mood, general anxiety) differs slightly across time. Consistent pregnancy anxiety, traumatic stress, somatic problems, detachment, anger-antagonism, and inattention-hyperactivity factors emerged across timepoints. Factors relating to positive affect, low mood, general anxiety, and social anxiety were structured similarly although not identically across time. These longitudinal trends in psychopathology structure have important implications for empirically based psychopathology classification in this critical developmental phase. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).