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Abstract
Two research areas that could benefit from a greater focus on the role of the reward pathway are maternal depression and maternal addiction. Both depression and addiction in mothers are mediated by deficiencies in the reward pathway and represent substantial risks to the health of offspring and future generations. This targeted review discusses maternal reward deficits in depressed and addicted mothers, neural, genetic, and epigenetic mechanisms, and the transgenerational transmission of these deficits from mother to offspring. Postpartum depression and drug use disorders may entail alterations in the reward pathway, particularly in striatal and prefrontal areas, which may affect maternal attachment to offspring and heighten the risk of transgenerational effects on the oxytocin and dopamine systems. Alterations may involve neural circuitry changes, genetic factors that impact monoaminergic neurotransmission, as well as growth factors such as BDNF and stress-associated signaling in the brain. Improved maternal reward-based preventative measures and treatments may be specifically effective for mothers and their offspring suffering from depression and/or addiction.
Highlights
To coin the words of the British psychologist and psychiatrist John Bowlby, “what is believed to be essential for mental health is that the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with his mother in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment” [1]
The present review will offer a concise overview of select topics spanning maternal reward deficits in depressed mothers, potential genetic factors involved and transgenerational effects, and the potential role of reward system alterations in maternal depression and drug use disorders
While most of the animal studies of the consequences of early social environment on neurophysiology and behavior have focused on the HPA axis and glucocorticoid receptor (GR) regulation, it would be advantageous to increase use of these models to investigate the influence of early life stress on social and reward pathways to fully understand the transgenerational transmission of depression
Summary
To coin the words of the British psychologist and psychiatrist John Bowlby, “what is believed to be essential for mental health is that the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with his mother in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment” [1]. The imaging studies suggest that treatments aimed at increasing the reward response to infant cues may be effective at improving maternal care in depressed mothers and preventing the adverse transgenerational effects of PND on offspring.
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