Browsing by Author "Pawlby, Susan"

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    Altered dynamics of the prefrontal networks are associated with the risk for postpartum psychosis: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study
    (Springer Nature, 2021-05-12) Sambataro, Fabio; Cattarinussi, Giulia; Lawrence, Andrew; Biaggi, Alessandra; Fusté, Montserrat; Hazelgrove, Katie; Mehta, Mitul A.; Pawlby, Susan; Conroy, Susan; Seneviratne, Gertrude; Craig, Michael C.; Pariante, Carmine M.; Miele, Maddalena; Dazzan, Paola; Psychiatry, School of Medicine
    Postpartum psychosis (PP) is a severe mental disorder that affects women in the first few weeks after delivery. To date there are no biomarkers that distinguish which women at risk (AR) develop a significant psychiatric relapse postpartum. While altered brain connectivity may contribute to the risk for psychoses unrelated to the puerperium, this remains unexplored in PP. We followed up 32 AR and 27 healthy (HC) women from pregnancy to 8-week postpartum. At this point, we classified women as AR-unwell (n = 15) if they had developed a psychiatric relapse meeting DSM-IV diagnostic criteria, or impacting on daily functioning and requiring treatment, or AR-well (n = 17) if they remained asymptomatic. Women also underwent an fMRI scan at rest and during an emotional-processing task, to study within- and between-networks functional connectivity. Women AR, and specifically those in the AR-well group, showed increased resting connectivity within an executive network compared to HC. During the execution of the emotional task, women AR also showed decreased connectivity in the executive network, and altered emotional load-dependent connectivity between executive, salience, and default-mode networks. AR-unwell women particularly showed increased salience network-dependent modulation of the default-mode and executive network relative to AR-well, who showed greater executive network-dependent modulation of the salience network. Our finding that the executive network and its interplay with other brain networks implicated in goal-directed behavior are intrinsically altered suggest that they could be considered neural phenotypes for postpartum psychosis and help advance our understanding of the pathophysiology of this disorder.
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    Increased maternal inflammation and poorer infant neurobehavioural competencies in women with a history of major depressive disorder from the psychiatry research and motherhood - Depression (PRAM-D) study
    (Elsevier, 2022) Osborne, Sarah; Biaggi, Alessandra; Hazelgrove, Katie; Du Preez, Andrea; Nikkheslat, Naghmeh; Sethna, Vaheshta; Zunszain, Patricia A.; Conroy, Susan; Pawlby, Susan; Pariante, Carmine M.; Psychiatry, School of Medicine
    Introduction: Stress in pregnancy is associated with adverse outcomes in offspring, and developmental programming is a potential mechanism. We have previously shown that depression in pregnancy is a valid and clearly defined stress paradigm, and both maternal antenatal and offspring stress-related biology is affected. This study aims to clarify whether maternal biology in pregnancy and offspring outcomes can also be influenced by a history of a prior depression, in the absence of depression in pregnancy. Our primary hypothesis is that, similarly to women with depression in pregnancy, women with a history of depression but who are not depressed in pregnancy will have increased cortisol secretion and markers of immune system function, and that their offspring will have poorer neuro-developmental competencies and increased cortisol stress response. Methods: A prospective longitudinal design was used in 59 healthy controls and 25 women with a past history of depression who were not depressed in pregnancy, named as 'history-only', and their offspring. Maternal antenatal stress-related biology (cortisol and markers of immune system function) and offspring outcomes (gestational age at birth, neonatal neurobehaviour (Neonatal Behavioural Assessment Scale, NBAS), cortisol stress response and basal cortisol at 2 and 12 months) and cognitive, language and motor development (Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (BSID)) were measured. Results: Compared with healthy pregnant women, those with a history of depression who remain free of depression in pregnancy exhibit increased markers of immune system function in pregnancy: IL-8 (d = 0.63, p = 0.030), VEGF (d = 0.40, p = 0.008) and MCP-1 (d = 0.61, p = 0.002) and have neonates with lower neurobehavioural scores in most areas, reaching statistical significance in thesocial-interactive (d = 1.26, p = 0.015) cluster. However, there were no differences in maternal or offspring HPA axis function or in infant development at 12 months. Conclusion: Our study indicates that pregnant women with a history of depression have increased markers of immune system function, and their offspring show behavioural alterations that may be the effects of in utero programming, epigenetic factors or genetic predisposition.
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    Mother–infant interaction in women with depression in pregnancy and in women with a history of depression: the Psychiatry Research and Motherhood – Depression (PRAM-D) study
    (Cambridge University Press, 2021-05-25) Bind, Rebecca H.; Biaggi, Alessandra; Bairead, Aoife; Du Preez, Andrea; Hazelgrove, Katie; Waites, Freddie; Conroy, Susan; Dazzan, Paola; Osborne, Sarah; Pawlby, Susan; Sethna, Vaheshta; Pariante, Carmine M.; Psychiatry, School of Medicine
    Background: Little is known about the effects of depression before birth on the quality of the mother-infant interaction. Aims: To understand whether depression, either in pregnancy or in lifetime before pregnancy, disrupts postnatal mother-infant interactions. Method: We recruited 131 pregnant women (51 healthy, 52 with major depressive disorder (MDD) in pregnancy, 28 with a history of MDD but healthy pregnancy), at 25 weeks' gestation. MDD was confirmed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Disorders. Neonatal behaviour was assessed at 6 days with the Neonatal Behavioural Assessment Scale, and mother-infant interaction was assessed at 8 weeks and 12 months with the Crittenden CARE-Index. Results: At 8 weeks and 12 months, dyads in the depression and history-only groups displayed a reduced quality of interaction compared with healthy dyads. Specifically, at 8 weeks, 62% in the depression group and 56% in the history-only group scored in the lowest category of dyadic synchrony (suggesting therapeutic interventions are needed), compared with 37% in the healthy group (P = 0.041); 48% and 32%, respectively, scored the same at 12 months, compared with 14% in the healthy group (P = 0.003). At 6 days, neonates in the depression and history-only groups exhibited decreased social-interactive behaviour, which, together with maternal socioeconomic difficulties, was also predictive of interaction quality, whereas postnatal depression was not. Conclusions: Both antenatal depression and a lifetime history of depression are associated with a decreased quality of mother-infant interaction, irrespective of postnatal depression. Clinicians should be aware of this, as pregnancy provides an opportunity for identification and intervention to support the developing relationship.
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    Risk Factors for Postpartum Relapse in Women at Risk of Postpartum Psychosis: The Role of Psychosocial Stress and the Biological Stress System
    (Elsevier, 2021) Hazelgrove, Katie; Biaggi, Alessandra; Waites, Freddie; Fuste, Montserrat; Osborne, Sarah; Conroy, Susan; Howard, Louise M.; Mehta, Mitul A.; Miele, Maddalena; Nikkheslat, Naghmeh; Seneviratne, Gertrude; Zunszain, Patricia A.; Pawlby, Susan; Pariante, Carmine M.; Dazzan, Paola; Psychiatry, School of Medicine
    Background: Postpartum psychosis is the most severe psychiatric disorder associated with childbirth, and the risk is particularly high for women with a history of bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder or those who have suffered a previous episode of postpartum psychosis. Whilst there is a lot of evidence linking stress to psychosis unrelated to childbirth, the role of stress in the onset of postpartum psychosis has not been fully investigated. Methods: A prospective longitudinal study of 112 pregnant women, 51 at risk of postpartum psychosis because of a DSM-IV diagnosis of bipolar disorder (n = 41), schizoaffective disorder (n = 6) or a previous postpartum psychosis (n = 4) and 61 healthy women with no past or current DSM-IV diagnosis and no family history of postpartum psychosis. Women were followed up from the third trimester of pregnancy to 4 weeks' post partum. Women at risk who had a psychiatric relapse in the first 4 weeks' post partum (AR-unwell) (n = 22), were compared with those at risk who remained well (AR-well) (n = 29) on measures of psychosocial stress (severe childhood maltreatment and stressful life events) and biological stress (cortisol and inflammatory biomarkers). Results: Logistic regression analyses revealed that severe childhood maltreatment (OR = 4.9, 95% CI 0.5-49.2) and higher daily cortisol in the third trimester of pregnancy (OR=3.7, 95% CI 1.2-11.6) predicted psychiatric relapse in the first 4 weeks' post partum in women at risk of postpartum psychosis after adjusting for clinical and sociodemographic covariates. Conclusion: The current study provides evidence for the role of psychosocial stress and the biological stress system in the risk of postpartum relapse in women at risk of postpartum psychosis.