Abstract #2253

Prenatal maternal distress during the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on infant brain connectivity

Kathryn Y. Manning^1,2,3, Xiangyu Long^1,2,3, Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen^2,4,5, Gerald Giesbrecht^2,4,5,6, and Catherine Lebel^1,2,3

¹Radiology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, ²Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, Calgary, AB, Canada, ³Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Calgary, AB, Canada, ⁴Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, ⁵Pediatrics, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, ⁶Community Health Sciences, Calgary, AB, Canada

We investigated the effects of prenatal maternal psychological distress in pregnant Canadian mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic on the early development of the infant brain. We scanned infants using the 3T MRI at the Alberta Children's hospital including resting state functional and diffusion MRI. We found that amygdala microstructural pathways were significantly related to functional connectivity between the right and left amygdala at 2-months of age. These infant MRI measures were correlated with maternal anxiety and psychological distress where we found relatively less mature tracts and lower amygdala-prefrontal functional connectivity were related to higher prenatal maternal psychological distress.

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