Understanding the Neurobiological Correlates of Parent-Child Interactions in Psychopathology: The Role of Caregiver Mental Health

• Main Author: George, Grace C
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01.01.2022
• Subjects: Individual & family studies; Mental health; Neurosciences; Psychobiology; Social psychology
• ISBN: 9798841726692

In the last twenty years, the United States has seen a two to three-fold increase in mental health disorders in children and adolescents, and youth whose parents have psychopathology are more likely to have mental health disorders themselves. While there has been previous research on behavioral links of parent and child psychopathology, little is understood about the neurobehavioral links and the mechanisms responsible for such linkage. In this dissertation, I have added beneficial research that helps inform future psychiatric work. My dissertation will address several critical knowledge gaps in the field of parent-child interactions, neurodevelopment, and risk for psychopathology in youth. My first aim addresses how parent symptoms and behaviors are related to child brain-symptom networks. I sought to understand if positive parenting may mitigate the risk of parental psychopathology on child symptoms. My second aim extends my first aim’s work into a more applied task involving parent to child emotional learning. Fear extinction is a well validated and applicable behavioral mechanism and can be disrupted in PTSD and anxiety disorders. Here, I examined whether synchrony is a potential mechanism underlying vicarious fear extinction learning and if this is related to parent symptoms, parent-child relationships, or any other aspects of parent-child interactions. These results provide potential targets for parents that experience mental health symptoms to help mitigate potential intergenerational transmission of mental illness. Understanding healthy and unhealthy transmission of information between parents and children is important for prevention and treatment of families with mental health disorders.