Infant Parasympathetic and Sympathetic Activity during Baseline, Stress and Recovery: Interactions with Prenatal Adversity Predict Physical Aggression in Toddlerhood

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, Aug 2017

Exposure to prenatal adversity is associated with aggression later in life. Individual differences in autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning, specifically nonreciprocal activation of the parasympathetic (PNS) and sympathetic (SNS) nervous systems, increase susceptibility to aggression, especially in the context of adversity. Previous work examining interactions between early adversity and ANS functioning in infancy is scarce and has not examined interaction between PNS and SNS. This study examined whether the PNS and SNS moderate the relation between cumulative prenatal risk and early physical aggression in 124 children (57% male). Cumulative risk (e.g., maternal psychiatric disorder, substance (ab)use, and social adversity) was assessed during pregnancy. Parasympathetic respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and sympathetic pre-ejection period (PEP) at baseline, in response to and during recovery from emotional challenge were measured at 6 months. Physical aggression and non-physical aggression/oppositional behavior were measured at 30 months. The results showed that cumulative prenatal risk predicted elevated physical aggression and non-physical aggression/oppositional behavior in toddlerhood; however, the effects on physical aggression were moderated by PNS and SNS functioning. Specifically, the effects of cumulative risk on physical aggression were particularly evident in children characterized by low baseline PNS activity and/or by nonreciprocal activity of the PNS and SNS, characterized by decreased activity (i.e., coinhibition) or increased activity (i.e., coactivation) of both systems at baseline and/or in response to emotional challenge. These findings extend our understanding of the interaction between perinatal risk and infant ANS functioning on developmental outcome.

A PDF file should load here. If you do not see its contents the file may be temporarily unavailable at the journal website or you do not have a PDF plug-in installed and enabled in your browser.

Alternatively, you can download the file locally and open with any standalone PDF reader:

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10802-017-0337-y.pdf

Infant Parasympathetic and Sympathetic Activity during Baseline, Stress and Recovery: Interactions with Prenatal Adversity Predict Physical Aggression in Toddlerhood

Infant Parasympathetic and Sympathetic Activity during Baseline, Stress and Recovery: Interactions with Prenatal Adversity Predict Physical Aggression in Toddlerhood J. Suurland 0 1 2 K. B. van der Heijden 0 1 2 S. C. J. Huijbregts 0 1 2 S. H. M. van Goozen 0 1 2 H. Swaab 0 1 2 0 School of Psychology, Cardiff University , Cardiff , UK 1 Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University , Leiden , The Netherlands 2 Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Studies, Leiden University , Wassenaarseweg 52, Room 4A03, Box 9555, 2300, RB Leiden , The Netherlands Exposure to prenatal adversity is associated with aggression later in life. Individual differences in autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning, specifically nonreciprocal activation of the parasympathetic (PNS) and sympathetic (SNS) nervous systems, increase susceptibility to aggression, especially in the context of adversity. Previous work examining interactions between early adversity and ANS functioning in infancy is scarce and has not examined interaction between PNS and SNS. This study examined whether the PNS and SNS moderate the relation between cumulative prenatal risk and early physical aggression in 124 children (57% male). Cumulative risk (e.g., maternal psychiatric disorder, substance (ab)use, and social adversity) was assessed during pregnancy. Parasympathetic respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and sympathetic pre-ejection period (PEP) at baseline, in response to and during recovery from emotional challenge were measured at 6 months. Physical aggression and non-physical aggression/ oppositional behavior were measured at 30 months. The results showed that cumulative prenatal risk predicted elevated physical aggression and non-physical aggression/oppositional behavior in toddlerhood; however, the effects on physical aggression were moderated by PNS and SNS functioning. Specifically, the effects of cumulative risk on physical aggression were particularly evident in children characterized by low baseline PNS activity and/or by nonreciprocal activity of the PNS and SNS, characterized by decreased activity (i.e., coinhibition) or increased activity (i.e., coactivation) of both systems at baseline and/or in response to emotional challenge. These findings extend our understanding of the interaction between perinatal risk and infant ANS functioning on developmental outcome. Aggression; Stress reactivity; Respiratory sinus arrhythmia; Pre-ejection period; Prenatal risk; Infancy - The earliest expressions of aggression are already apparent in infancy (Hay et al. 2010; Tremblay et al. 2004) . Although physical aggression is known to peak at age 2 and 3, and then to decline over the preschool period (Alink et al. 2006), there is evidence that relatively high levels of aggressive behavior during early development predict persistent and severe aggressive and antisocial behavior over the course of childhood (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network 2004) , and a range of other problems including low academic achievement and poor social relationships (Campbell, Spieker, Burchinal, Poe, and The NICHD Early Child Care Research Network 2006) . Research has highlighted that adversity experienced during prenatal development can have long-lasting effects on children’s development (Monk et al. 2012; Rice et al. 2010) . Childhood aggressive behavior has been linked to a number of different risk factors during the prenatal period such as high levels of stress, anxiety and depression or antisocial behavior (Hay et al. 2011; O'Connor et al. 2002; Rice et al. 2010) , smoking (Huijbregts et al. 2008), low socioeconomic status, low educational attainment, and early entry into parenthood (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network 2004; Tremblay et al. 2004) . Although exposure to maternal risk factors during prenatal development is highly correlated with continued exposure during postnatal development (Monk et al. 2012), there is evidence that prenatal stress predicts childhood antisocial behavior irrespective of postnatal circumstances (Rice et al. 2010) . Notably, previous work has shown a dose-dependent relation between the presence of multiple risk factors and child adjustment (Appleyard et al. 2005) . It is generally acknowledged that children differ in their physiological susceptibility to these early adversities (Boyce and Ellis 2005) . A growing number of studies in children and adolescents have examined interactions between adversity and measures of autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning in predicting the development of aggression (El-Sheikh and Erath 2011) . The ANS plays an important role in emotion regulation (Porges 2007) , and abnormal ANS functioning has been linked to aggression and externalizing behavior (Van Goozen et al. 2007) . During infancy, the ANS is rapidly developing which is associated with increased responsiveness to environmental influences (Porges and Furman 2011) . Yet, we know little about how t (...truncated)


This is a preview of a remote PDF: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10802-017-0337-y.pdf

J. Suurland, K. B. van der Heijden, S. C. J. Huijbregts, S. H. M. van Goozen, H. Swaab. Infant Parasympathetic and Sympathetic Activity during Baseline, Stress and Recovery: Interactions with Prenatal Adversity Predict Physical Aggression in Toddlerhood, Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 2017, pp. 1-14, DOI: 10.1007/s10802-017-0337-y