Maternal Positive Affect Socialization and Child Neural Reward Response
University of Pittsburgh
Summary
The goal of this mechanistic clinical trial is to examine whether parent-coaching aimed at increasing child positive affect will increase child neural response to reward. The main questions it aims to answer are: Aim 1. Characterize child neural reward response and its relation to maternal socialization of positive emotions at baseline in healthy young children. Aim 2. Evaluate how coaching-related changes in maternal socialization of positive emotion expression contribute to increases in child neural reward response over time. Aim 3. Examine how maternal socialization of positive emotion expression contributes to increases in child neural reward response in the moment. Participating mother-child dyads will be randomized to either 3 sessions of parent coaching of child positive affect or 3 sessions of a general parenting support intervention and neural response to reward and affective behavior will be examined pre and post intervention.
Description
Reward-related brain function is consistently linked to greater motivation, pleasure, and goal-directed behavior and lower risk for depression across the lifespan. Healthy neural reward response supports socioemotional development, particularly during early childhood as self-regulatory skills and child reward-related brain function are rapidly developing in the context of the caregiving environment. Maternal socialization of positive emotion is one important influence on early reward circuitry development. Mothers with depression are more likely to discourage (and less likely to encourage) chi…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 4–99 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria for Mothers: * Birth mother (biologically female, any gender) * Providing regular care for participating child (i.e., at least 50% of time) * Elevated, clinically significant levels of depression (16 or higher on CES-D) * Aged 18+ Exclusion Criteria for Mothers: * Lifetime history of a bipolar disorder * Lifetime history of a psychotic disorder Inclusion Criteria for Participating Child: -Aged 4-6 years Exclusion Criteria for Participating Child: * T-score greater than 63 on the internalizing or externalizing composites of the CBCL * Lifetime history of a psychiatric…
Interventions
- BehavioralParent Coaching
Three sessions of parent coaching of child positive affect will be administered based on modules from PCIT-ED.
- BehavioralActive Control
General parent support and psychoeducation based on components of standard PCIT.
Location
- University of PittsburghPittsburgh, Pennsylvania