Prenatal Developmental Origins of Early Brain and Behavior Development, of Self-Regulation in Adolescence, and of Cognition and Central and Autonomic Nervous System Function in Adulthood

Abstract

The study of Developmental Origins of Behavior, Health and Disease (DOBHaD) encompasses both short- and long-term consequences of conditions in the environment relevant to behavior, health, and disease risk and addresses research issues related to the interface between developmental, behavioral, and medical science. In this chapter, we present our DOBHaD model in which we incorporate the results of seven of our studies as examples to demonstrate how each topic influenced the model; in addition, we provide a brief overview of relevant literature. In the first section, four studies from the Leuven prospective follow-up project are described. Study 1 examines the influence of maternal emotions on fetal and neonatal behavioral state-related activity and on infant activity. Study 2 examines the relationship between fetal behavioral states and self-regulation in childhood and adolescence. Study 3 explores the consistency of long-term effects of maternal anxiety during pregnancy on offspring cognition and functional brain correlates in the 20-year-old offspring. Study 4 investigates the relationship between prenatal exposure to maternal anxiety and the perception of dyspnea in the 28-year-old offspring. In the second section, three recent studies from the Tilburg prospective follow-up project are described. Study 5 explores the issue of how exposure to a past, resolved maternal anxiety disorder influences maternal heart rate variability during pregnancy as well as infant heart rate variability, which in turn influences infant temperament. Study 6 explores how variation in both negative emotions (i.e., maternal anxiety) and positive emotions (i.e., maternal mindfulness) influences infant neurocognitive development. Study 7 investigates the association between maternal anxiety during pregnancy and affective picture processing in 4-year-olds using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). In the final section, we summarize our results, use them to explain the (use of) the DOBHaD model, and speculate on potential clinical implications.