Concordance of Parent-Offspring Cortico-Basal Ganglia White Matter Connectivity: The Role of Parental Depression and Parent-Child Bonding

Abstract

Offspring of depressed parents show an increased risk for depression, as well as impaired social cognition and interpersonal dysfunction. Given the key role of the cortico-basal ganglia (CBG) circuits in the formation and maintenance of social bonding, we examined concordance in white matter (WM) connectivity in CBG circuits between biological parents with and without lifetime-major depressive disorder (MDD) and their never-MDD offspring, and explored the effect of early parental bonding on neural concordance in high-risk dyads.