Brain Development
Research: Maternal Depression Impacts Children’s Basis of Empathy
February 08, 2017 | Emily Taylor
A study published in the January 2017 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry followed children of mothers with depression from birth to preadolescence to look at the impact of mothers’ depression on children’s neural empathic response. Researchers found the neural reaction to pain in others stops earlier for children of depressed mothers than in controls. The patterns of interaction between mother–child were also found to be a factor.