Parental stress during the early stages of development makes girls prone to anxiety, according to a new study.
Dr. Cory Burghy and colleagues found teenage girls experiencing high level of stress in infancy having high level of stress hormone cortisol and less connection between brain areas related to emotion regulation by age 14. Both of these factors were found making these girls at higher risks of anxiety by age 18.
"We wanted to understand how stress early in life impacts patterns of brain development which might lead to anxiety and depression," first author Burghy of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, said in a statement. "Young girls, who, as preschoolers, had heightened cortisol levels, go on to show lower brain connectivity in important neural pathways for emotion regulation - and that predicts symptoms of anxiety during adolescence."
For the study, researchers used a technique called resting-state functional connectivity (fcMRI), developed by Dr. Rasmus Birn, assistant professor of psychiatry in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
The scan was used to examine the link between the amygdale (brain area that is sensitive to negative emotion and threat) and the prefrontal cortex (brain area that process and regulate negative emotion. For the study, researchers looked at 57 young people, both male (29) and female (28).
They found girls growing up with mothers suffering depression, frustration, marital conflict or financial stress having weak connection between these brain areas. However, researchers couldn't find such an association in boys.
"Our findings raise questions on how boys and girls differ in the life impact of early stress,'' Dr. Richard Davidson, professor of psychology and psychiatry, said. "We do know that women report higher levels of mood and anxiety disorders, and these sex-based differences are very pronounced, especially in adolescence."
Results of the study have been published in Nature Neuroscience.
