# Brain-Behavior Synchrony in Very Young Children and their Depressed Mothers

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · 2021 · $524,075

## Abstract

Project Abstract. Children of depressed mothers are at increased risk for developing multiple psychiatric
disorders in their lifetime. Devastatingly, these affective and behavioral disorders appear to emerge early
in these high risk youth, with some studies showing elevated rates by age 5 or 6—highlighting the need to
uncover etiological mechanisms that occur in the first five years of life. One putative mechanism of risk
for psychopathology is aberrant responding in reward and social circuitry that is associated with less
motivation for and pleasurable enjoyment of positive experiences. However, when, how, and why these
reward disruptions emerge is unclear. One possibility is that compromised caregiving during the first
years of life may fail to reinforce healthy reward function in offspring, given that warm, synchronous
interactions appear to serve as a social reward. The conceptual model of this proposed BRAINS award is
that positive reciprocal and synchronous interactions between mother and child during the crucial infant-
toddler years may serve to reinforce brain development in offspring reward systems via oxytocin-
dopamine-frontostriatal pathways. For children of depressed mothers, this loop may be compromised by
less synchronous interactions and the negative impact of these asynchronous interactions may have
cascade effects for child social behavior, including affect regulation with and by others, perspective-
taking, and empathy, and for child psychiatric illness, especially anxiety and disruptive disorders. Using
a multi-method, accelerated longitudinal design, a diverse sample of 160 mothers (half meeting criteria
for depression) and first-born children will be recruited into three cohorts (at child age 12 months, 24
months, and 36 months at study entry) and will be assessed yearly for three years. Mother-child
synchrony during play will be assessed for each cohort yearly using affective (shared positive affect) and
behavioral (harmonious, reciprocal play) indices. Simultaneous near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), an
optical imaging technique that is non-restrictive and child-friendly will be used to measure neural
responding to mother-child play in both mothers and children at all ages. Mother-child synchrony of
neural responding in cortical neural regions implicated in reward responding, social flexibility,
synchronous interactions, and mentalizing will also be explored. Starting at child age 3, child neural
response to reward and social feedback will be assessed using developmentally-appropriate NIRS reward
paradigms. At age 5, children will undergo an fMRI scan to explore activity in and connectivity among
reward and social networks. Changes in child prosocial behavior and aggressive behavior and emergence
of preschool psychopathology (anxiety, disruptive disorders) will be measured at child ages 3-5.Mother-
child bio-behavioral synchrony will be evaluated as a predictor of these changes and the onset of disorder.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10216995
- **Project number:** 5R01MH113777-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
- **Principal Investigator:** Judith K. Morgan
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $524,075
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-08-10 → 2024-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10216995

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10216995, Brain-Behavior Synchrony in Very Young Children and their Depressed Mothers (5R01MH113777-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10216995. Licensed CC0.

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