# Translating brain to behavior: The reward-stress dysregulation model of addicted parenting

> **NIH NIH R21** · YALE UNIVERSITY · 2023 · $209,375

## Abstract

Abstract
Maternal addiction remains a significant public health concern, impacting the health and well-being of mothers
as well as their developing child. Crucially, addiction disrupts early maternal care, increasing the vulnerability of
the child to later substance use, abuse, and dependence1,2. Therefore, work in this area of parenting and
addiction resonates with Goal 1 of NIDA’s strategic plan in understanding causes and consequences of drug
use and addiction across the lifespan, and will inform Goal 2 in the identification of new and improved
strategies to prevent drug use and its consequences. Recent efforts to advance our understanding of the
impact of addiction on caregiving have employed neurobiological methods to examine how mothers respond to
salient infant affective cues (infant face and cry stimuli). Such an approach has yielded convergent EEG/ERP
and fMRI findings of delayed and decreased neural responses to infant cues in mothers with addiction, relative
to mothers not engaged in substance use3-5. Building on this research, theoretical models have posited that
addiction’s co-optation of reward neural circuits decrease the salience of infant cues and leads to the
diminishment of the pleasure and reward of caregiving6-8. However, there is no empirical data that indicates the
attenuated neural responses to infant affective cues measured in mothers with addiction translate to measures
of caregiving behavior. This represents a significant challenge to the validity of neurobiological studies of
parenting and addiction in the identification of mechanisms that may inform intervention efforts to decrease
substance use and enhance caregiving and mother-child well-being. Therefore, this R21 application seeks to
explore whether addiction impacts neural processing of infant affective cues and affiliated caregiving in recent
mothers. Neural processing of infant cues will be accomplished through EEG/ERP methodology and caregiving
in this context will incorporate self-report and observed behavior. The project will be actualized within the
context of tobacco-smoking and nicotine addiction, allowing for the extension of this work to other substance
use disorders.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10594408
- **Project number:** 5R21DA052620-02
- **Recipient organization:** YALE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Helena JV Rutherford
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $209,375
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-04-01 → 2025-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10594408

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10594408, Translating brain to behavior: The reward-stress dysregulation model of addicted parenting (5R21DA052620-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10594408. Licensed CC0.

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