Abstract
Individual differences in maternal behavior are affected by both early life experiences and oxytocin, but little is known about genetic variation in oxytocin genes and its effects on mothering. We examined two polymorphisms in the oxytocin peptide gene OXT (rs2740210 and rs4813627) and one polymorphism in the oxytocin receptor gene OXTR (rs237885) in 187 Caucasian mothers at six months postpartum. For OXT, both rs2740210 and rs4813627 significantly associated with maternal vocalizing to the infant. These polymorphisms also interacted with the quality of care mothers experienced in early life, to predict variation in maternal instrumental care and postpartum depression. However, postpartum depression did not mediate the gene-environment effects of the OXT SNPs on instrumental care. In contrast, the OXTR SNP rs237885 did not associate with maternal behavior, but it did associate with pre-natal (but not post-natal) depression score. The findings illustrate the importance of variation in oxytocin genes, both alone and in interaction with early environment, as predictors of individual differences in human mothering. Furthermore, depression does not appear to have a causal role on the variation we report in instrumental care. This suggests that variation in instrumental care varies in association with a gene-early environment effect regardless of current depressive symptomatology. Finally, our findings highlight the importance of examining multiple dimensions of human maternal behavior in studies of genetic associations.
Highlights
Life experiences including adversity and stress influence development in many mammals
The previous findings indicate that the maternal phenotypic outcomes we use in the present analysis have shown sensitivity in prior genetic association studies, and highlight the potential specificity of polymorphisms relating to different dimensions of mothering phenotypes
We examined polymorphic variation on two oxytocin genes – one which codes for the oxytocin peptide (OXT), and one which codes for the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) – and found that polymorphisms in oxytocin peptide-coding gene (OXT) associate with both infant-directed vocalizing and maternal instrumental care
Summary
Life experiences including adversity and stress influence development in many mammals. Human mothers who have experienced early adversity show problematic mothering They are more likely to be abusive and neglectful or to be less sensitive and responsive to their babies [4]. In all of these species, including humans, negative parenting experiences are transmitted across generations [5,6,7]. Differences in vulnerability to early experiences are related to protective factors throughout life, including nonparent support in early development, social support networks, and marrying a supportive spouse [8,9]. The role of genetic variation is largely unexplored in the study of individual differences in mothering
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