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European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience (2019) 269:171–181
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-018-0929-8
ORIGINAL PAPER
Neural processing oftheown child’s facial emotions inmothers
withahistory ofearly life maltreatment
CorinneNeukel1· SabineC.Herpertz1· CatherineHinid‑Attar2· Anna‑LenaZietlow3· AnnaFuchs4· EvaMoehler4·
FelixBermpohl2· KatjaBertsch1
Received: 12 March 2018 / Accepted: 16 July 2018 / Published online: 28 July 2018
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract
Early life maltreatment (ELM) has long-lasting effects on social interaction. When interacting with their own child, women
with ELM often report difficulties in parenting and show reduced maternal sensitivity. Sensitive maternal behavior requires
the recognition of the child’s emotional state depicted in its facial emotions. Based on previous studies, it can be expected
that ELM affects the neural processing of facial emotions by altering activation patterns in parts of the brain’s empathy and
mentalizing networks. However, so far studies have focused on the processing of standardized, adult facial emotions. There-
fore, the current study investigated the impact of ELM on the processing of one’s own child’s facial emotions using functional
magnetic resonance imaging. To achieve this, 27 mothers with and 26 mothers without a history of ELM (all without current
mental disorders and psychopharmacological treatment) took part in an emotional face recognition paradigm with happy,
sad, and neutral faces of their own and an unknown primary school-aged child of the same age and sex. We found elevated
activations in regions of the mentalizing (superior temporal sulcus, precuneus) and mirror neuron (inferior parietal lobule)
networks as well as in the visual face processing network (cuneus, middle temporal gyrus) in mothers with ELM compared
to the non-maltreated mothers in response to happy faces of their own child. This suggests a more effortful processing and
cognitive empathic mentalizing of the own child’s facial happiness in mothers with ELM. Future research should address
whether this might indicate a compensatory recruitment of mentalizing capacities to maintain maternal sensitivity.
Keywords Trauma· Physical and sexual abuse· Maternal brain· Facial emotion recognition· Functional magnetic
resonance imaging· Mentalizing
Introduction
Early life maltreatment (ELM) such as sexual or physical
abuse is highly prevalent [1, 2]. Its consequences range from
an increased risk for cardiovascular dysfunctioning [3] to
an increased risk for mental disorders in general, including
non-psychotic disorders like depression [4], various anxiety
disorders [5], or borderline personality disorder [6], as well
as psychotic disorders [7]. Beyond this, women with ELM
often report difficulties in parenting their children. Empiri-
cal evidence confirms more impulsive, intrusive, and hos-
tile behaviors [8, 9] as well as less positive parent–child
interactions [10] along with reduced confidence in parenting
competences [11] in women with experiences of ELM. Con-
sistent with this, data from our own research group points to
reduced sensitivity of maltreated mothers when interacting
with their child [12–14], resulting in behavior problems and
deficits in social competences of the children [15, 16].
One important aspect of sensitive parenting is the fast and
accurate recognition of and response to a child’s emotional
cues, such as facial emotions. Facial emotions of infants
and children not only convey information that facilitates
social communication, but are also particularly salient and
* Corinne Neukel
corinne.neukel@med.uni-heidelberg.de
1 Department ofGeneral Psychiatry, Center forPsychosocial
Medicine, University ofHeidelberg, Voßstraße 4,
69115Heidelberg, Germany
2 Department ofPsychiatry andPsychotherapy, University
Medicine Berlin, Charité Campus Mitte, Berlin, Germany
3 Institute ofMedical Psychology, Center forPsychosocial
Medicine, University ofHeidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
4 Department ofChild andAdolescent Psychiatry, Center
forPsychosocial Medicine, University ofHeidelberg,
Heidelberg, Germany
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