Helena J V Rutherford
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3530441 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Helena J V Rutherford |
| NOMBRES | Helena J V |
| APELLIDO | Rutherford |
| FIRMA | RUTHERFORD H J V |
| AFILIACIONES | Yale University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8680-1535 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 25 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 9 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 25 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2011 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 2 |
Investigating associations between maternal neural responsivity and infant developmental outcomes
Maternal responsiveness plays an important role in child development. Event-related potentials can be used to examine neural mechanisms underlying maternal responsivity. Here, associations between neural markers of maternal responsivity and five child development domains-cognitive, language, motor, adaptive behavior, and social-emotional development-were examined in 94 mothers ( M age = 29.19 years; 41% African American, 28% Caucasian, 19% Hispan…
Maternal Psychological Trauma Assessed Prenatally and Offspring Outcomes
Psychologically traumatic experiences can have long-lasting physical and mental health effects on pregnant people, increasing the risk of adverse pregnancy, childbirth, and neonatal outcomes. The effect of maternal psychological trauma, assessed prenatally, on offspring outcomes throughout development is understudied. This secondary analysis of a systematic review investigated the scope of research examining links between prenatally assessed mate…
Operationalizing psychological trauma in pregnancy
Findings indicate significant variability in the conceptualization of psychological trauma during pregnancy. A more comprehensive assessment of psychological trauma beginning in the first trimester and repeated across the prenatal period is needed. Such an approach will be critical to the implementation of trauma-informed care to optimize the health and well-being of pregnant women and other perinatal individuals and their developing child and fa…
The significance of mothers’ neural responding to infant emotional cues for caregiving behaviors
We examined associations between mothers' ( N = 137; 77.7% White/non-Hispanic) neural responding implicated in facial encoding (N170) and attention (P300) to infant emotional expressions and direct observations of their caregiving behaviors toward their 6-month-old infants. We also explored the moderating role of mother-reported and observer-rated infant temperamental distress. Few direct associations emerged that were not further moderated by te…
A Role for Fetal Movement in Shaping Maternal Neurodevelopment
Emerging evidence suggests that the maternal brain undergoes significant change during pregnancy, which may serve to prepare the individual for caregiving, including increased maternal responsiveness. It has been proposed that fetal movement may play a role in shaping maternal neurodevelopment during pregnancy, including increasing responsiveness to infant cues. In the current study, we examined links between fetal movement and neural responses t…
Global variation in the assessment of psychological trauma in pregnancy
A history of psychologically traumatic experiences can impact health outcomes for pregnant people and their infants. The perception and prevalence of traumatic experiences during pregnancy may differ by geographical region. To better understand trends in how and what kinds of psychological trauma are assessed globally, we conducted a secondary analysis on a larger systematic review examining psychological trauma measurement in pregnancy. Through …
Racial and Ethnic Representation in Studies of Psychological Trauma During Pregnancy in the United States
Envisioning motherhood
Nancy Suchman's work highlighted the fundamental role of maternal mentalization in maternal addiction, mental health, and caregiving challenges. In this study, we aimed to examine the role of mental‐state language (MSL) as a measure of mentalization in prenatal and postnatal narratives and their sentiment in a sample of 91 primarily White mothers from the western United States, followed from the second trimester of pregnancy, through the third tr…
Current Substance Use and Maternal Neural Responses to Infant Faces and Cries
Frontal EEG Asymmetry in Fathers who use Intimate Partner Violence
Exploring resting frontal EEG and reflective functioning in maternal substance use
Maternal substance use is associated with altered neural activity and poor offspring outcomes, which may be facilitated by suboptimal caregiving in the form of impaired parental reflective functioning (PRF). To investigate these associations, the resting‐state frontal electroencephalography (EEG) power of 48 substance‐using mothers and 37 non‐substance‐using mothers were examined, specifying seven frequency bands: delta, theta, alpha, alpha1, alp…
Facial recognition during early motherhood
The Presence of Another Person Influences Oscillatory Cortical Dynamics During Dual Brain EEG Recording
Humans are innately social creatures and the social environment strongly influences brain development. As such, the human brain is primed for and sensitive to social information even in the absence of explicit task or instruction. In this study, we examined the influence of different levels of interpersonal proximity on resting state brain activity and its association with social cognition. We measured EEG in pairs of 13 typically developing (TD)…
Substance use and mothers’ neural responses to infant cues
Substance use may influence mothers’ responsiveness to their infants and negatively impact the parent–infant relationship. Maternal substance use may co‐opt neural circuitry involved in caregiving, thus reducing the salience of infant cues and diminishing the sense of reward experienced by caring for infants. Gaps in understanding exist with regard to the mechanisms by which substance use operates to influence mothers’ processing of infant cues a…
Personality organization and maternal addiction
Motherhood has been deemed a normal crisis given the significant psychological, biological, and neural changes surrounding pregnancy and the postpartum period. These challenges can become more complex because they are closely related to the parent’s own self-development and sense of self-efficacy grounded in their personality prior to parenthood. The normal crisis of motherhood may be further complicated by addiction. Considering the evidence of …
Ghosts in the nursery
Previous studies have shown that the experience of childhood maltreatment can influence recognition and processing of emotional cues and that these effects can extend into adulthood. Such alterations in cognitive processing may have important implications for processing of infant affect and parenting behavior. This study investigated whether the experience of childhood maltreatment altered attentional processing of infant faces in a community sam…
Current Tobacco-Smoking and Neural Responses to Infant Cues in Mothers
SYNOPSISObjective. Smoking has a detrimental impact on maternal physical health and exposes children to secondhand smoke, but the extent to which it affects maternal brain and behavior is not well-known and may have implications for parent and child development. We examined how current smoking status might relate to maternal neural responses to infant cues using event-related potentials. Design. Current smoking (n = 35) and non-smoking (n = 35) m…
Introduction to Maternal Brain Plasticity
Motivated Attention and Reward in Parenting
SYNOPSISParenting has a significant and lasting impact on child development. From birth, parents must sensitively and appropriately attend to their infant’s emotional expressions and vocalizations. Accumulating evidence indicates that these infant cues of emotion attract more attention than equivalent adult cues in parents as well as non-parents. We review this evidence and suggest that infant cues hold high incentive value and elicit motivated a…
Emotion regulation in parenthood
The Application of Electroencephalography to Investigate the Neural Bases of Parenting
SYNOPSISParents play a significant role in their child’s development. Recent neuroimaging research has begun to evaluate the neural circuitry of human parenting to better understand parental responsiveness to infant affective cues. Here, the authors introduce the value of using electroencephalography and event-related potentials as a methodology to probe the neural correlates of parenting. Given the precise temporal resolution of this technique, …
Maternal and adolescent distress tolerance
Distress tolerance is defined behaviorally as the ability to maintain goal-directed behavior while experiencing physical or psychological distress. Distress tolerance is closely related to emotion regulation and is a clinically relevant construct contributing to psychopathology across adults and adolescents, yet limited research has examined the development of this construct. A number of studies suggest the importance of parenting in the emergenc…
Attachment dismissal predicts frontal slow-wave ERPs during rejection by unfamiliar peers
Attachment representations are thought to provide a cognitive-affective template, guiding the way individuals interact with unfamiliar social partners. To examine the neural correlates of this process, we sampled event-related potentials (ERPs) during exclusion by unfamiliar peers to differentiate insecure-dismissing from securely attached youth, as indexed by the child attachment interview. Thirteen secure and 10 dismissing 11- to 15-year-olds w…
Disruption of Maternal Parenting Circuitry by Addictive Process
Addiction represents a complex interaction between the reward and stress neural circuits, with increasing drug use reflecting a shift from positive reinforcement to negative reinforcement mechanisms in sustaining drug dependence. Preclinical studies have indicated the involvement of regions within the extended amygdala as subserving this transition, especially under stressful conditions. In the addictive situation, the reward system serves to mai…
Maternal Neural Responses to Infant Cries and Faces
Substance abuse in pregnant and recently post-partum women is a major public health concern because of effects on the infant and on the ability of the adult to care for the infant. In addition to the negative health effects of teratogenic substances on fetal development, substance use can contribute to difficulties associated with the social and behavioral aspects of parenting. Neural circuits associated with parenting behavior overlap with circu…
Substance use and mothers’ neural responses to infant cues
Substance use may influence mothers’ responsiveness to their infants and negatively impact the parent–infant relationship. Maternal substance use may co‐opt neural circuitry involved in caregiving, thus reducing the salience of infant cues and diminishing the sense of reward experienced by caring for infants. Gaps in understanding exist with regard to the mechanisms by which substance use operates to influence mothers’ processing of infant cues a…
Envisioning motherhood
Nancy Suchman's work highlighted the fundamental role of maternal mentalization in maternal addiction, mental health, and caregiving challenges. In this study, we aimed to examine the role of mental‐state language (MSL) as a measure of mentalization in prenatal and postnatal narratives and their sentiment in a sample of 91 primarily White mothers from the western United States, followed from the second trimester of pregnancy, through the third tr…
Current Tobacco-Smoking and Neural Responses to Infant Cues in Mothers
SYNOPSISObjective. Smoking has a detrimental impact on maternal physical health and exposes children to secondhand smoke, but the extent to which it affects maternal brain and behavior is not well-known and may have implications for parent and child development. We examined how current smoking status might relate to maternal neural responses to infant cues using event-related potentials. Design. Current smoking (n = 35) and non-smoking (n = 35) m…
Global variation in the assessment of psychological trauma in pregnancy
A history of psychologically traumatic experiences can impact health outcomes for pregnant people and their infants. The perception and prevalence of traumatic experiences during pregnancy may differ by geographical region. To better understand trends in how and what kinds of psychological trauma are assessed globally, we conducted a secondary analysis on a larger systematic review examining psychological trauma measurement in pregnancy. Through …
Motivated Attention and Reward in Parenting
SYNOPSISParenting has a significant and lasting impact on child development. From birth, parents must sensitively and appropriately attend to their infant’s emotional expressions and vocalizations. Accumulating evidence indicates that these infant cues of emotion attract more attention than equivalent adult cues in parents as well as non-parents. We review this evidence and suggest that infant cues hold high incentive value and elicit motivated a…
Disruption of Maternal Parenting Circuitry by Addictive Process
Addiction represents a complex interaction between the reward and stress neural circuits, with increasing drug use reflecting a shift from positive reinforcement to negative reinforcement mechanisms in sustaining drug dependence. Preclinical studies have indicated the involvement of regions within the extended amygdala as subserving this transition, especially under stressful conditions. In the addictive situation, the reward system serves to mai…
Maternal Neural Responses to Infant Cries and Faces
Substance abuse in pregnant and recently post-partum women is a major public health concern because of effects on the infant and on the ability of the adult to care for the infant. In addition to the negative health effects of teratogenic substances on fetal development, substance use can contribute to difficulties associated with the social and behavioral aspects of parenting. Neural circuits associated with parenting behavior overlap with circu…
Attachment dismissal predicts frontal slow-wave ERPs during rejection by unfamiliar peers
Attachment representations are thought to provide a cognitive-affective template, guiding the way individuals interact with unfamiliar social partners. To examine the neural correlates of this process, we sampled event-related potentials (ERPs) during exclusion by unfamiliar peers to differentiate insecure-dismissing from securely attached youth, as indexed by the child attachment interview. Thirteen secure and 10 dismissing 11- to 15-year-olds w…
Maternal and adolescent distress tolerance
Distress tolerance is defined behaviorally as the ability to maintain goal-directed behavior while experiencing physical or psychological distress. Distress tolerance is closely related to emotion regulation and is a clinically relevant construct contributing to psychopathology across adults and adolescents, yet limited research has examined the development of this construct. A number of studies suggest the importance of parenting in the emergenc…
Emotion regulation in parenthood
The Application of Electroencephalography to Investigate the Neural Bases of Parenting
SYNOPSISParents play a significant role in their child’s development. Recent neuroimaging research has begun to evaluate the neural circuitry of human parenting to better understand parental responsiveness to infant affective cues. Here, the authors introduce the value of using electroencephalography and event-related potentials as a methodology to probe the neural correlates of parenting. Given the precise temporal resolution of this technique, …
Introduction to Maternal Brain Plasticity
Motivated Attention and Reward in Parenting
SYNOPSISParenting has a significant and lasting impact on child development. From birth, parents must sensitively and appropriately attend to their infant’s emotional expressions and vocalizations. Accumulating evidence indicates that these infant cues of emotion attract more attention than equivalent adult cues in parents as well as non-parents. We review this evidence and suggest that infant cues hold high incentive value and elicit motivated a…
Current Tobacco-Smoking and Neural Responses to Infant Cues in Mothers
SYNOPSISObjective. Smoking has a detrimental impact on maternal physical health and exposes children to secondhand smoke, but the extent to which it affects maternal brain and behavior is not well-known and may have implications for parent and child development. We examined how current smoking status might relate to maternal neural responses to infant cues using event-related potentials. Design. Current smoking (n = 35) and non-smoking (n = 35) m…
Ghosts in the nursery
Previous studies have shown that the experience of childhood maltreatment can influence recognition and processing of emotional cues and that these effects can extend into adulthood. Such alterations in cognitive processing may have important implications for processing of infant affect and parenting behavior. This study investigated whether the experience of childhood maltreatment altered attentional processing of infant faces in a community sam…
Personality organization and maternal addiction
Motherhood has been deemed a normal crisis given the significant psychological, biological, and neural changes surrounding pregnancy and the postpartum period. These challenges can become more complex because they are closely related to the parent’s own self-development and sense of self-efficacy grounded in their personality prior to parenthood. The normal crisis of motherhood may be further complicated by addiction. Considering the evidence of …
Facial recognition during early motherhood
The Presence of Another Person Influences Oscillatory Cortical Dynamics During Dual Brain EEG Recording
Humans are innately social creatures and the social environment strongly influences brain development. As such, the human brain is primed for and sensitive to social information even in the absence of explicit task or instruction. In this study, we examined the influence of different levels of interpersonal proximity on resting state brain activity and its association with social cognition. We measured EEG in pairs of 13 typically developing (TD)…
Substance use and mothers’ neural responses to infant cues
Substance use may influence mothers’ responsiveness to their infants and negatively impact the parent–infant relationship. Maternal substance use may co‐opt neural circuitry involved in caregiving, thus reducing the salience of infant cues and diminishing the sense of reward experienced by caring for infants. Gaps in understanding exist with regard to the mechanisms by which substance use operates to influence mothers’ processing of infant cues a…
Current Substance Use and Maternal Neural Responses to Infant Faces and Cries
Frontal EEG Asymmetry in Fathers who use Intimate Partner Violence
Exploring resting frontal EEG and reflective functioning in maternal substance use
Maternal substance use is associated with altered neural activity and poor offspring outcomes, which may be facilitated by suboptimal caregiving in the form of impaired parental reflective functioning (PRF). To investigate these associations, the resting‐state frontal electroencephalography (EEG) power of 48 substance‐using mothers and 37 non‐substance‐using mothers were examined, specifying seven frequency bands: delta, theta, alpha, alpha1, alp…
Envisioning motherhood
Nancy Suchman's work highlighted the fundamental role of maternal mentalization in maternal addiction, mental health, and caregiving challenges. In this study, we aimed to examine the role of mental‐state language (MSL) as a measure of mentalization in prenatal and postnatal narratives and their sentiment in a sample of 91 primarily White mothers from the western United States, followed from the second trimester of pregnancy, through the third tr…
Maternal Psychological Trauma Assessed Prenatally and Offspring Outcomes
Psychologically traumatic experiences can have long-lasting physical and mental health effects on pregnant people, increasing the risk of adverse pregnancy, childbirth, and neonatal outcomes. The effect of maternal psychological trauma, assessed prenatally, on offspring outcomes throughout development is understudied. This secondary analysis of a systematic review investigated the scope of research examining links between prenatally assessed mate…
Operationalizing psychological trauma in pregnancy
Findings indicate significant variability in the conceptualization of psychological trauma during pregnancy. A more comprehensive assessment of psychological trauma beginning in the first trimester and repeated across the prenatal period is needed. Such an approach will be critical to the implementation of trauma-informed care to optimize the health and well-being of pregnant women and other perinatal individuals and their developing child and fa…
The significance of mothers’ neural responding to infant emotional cues for caregiving behaviors
We examined associations between mothers' ( N = 137; 77.7% White/non-Hispanic) neural responding implicated in facial encoding (N170) and attention (P300) to infant emotional expressions and direct observations of their caregiving behaviors toward their 6-month-old infants. We also explored the moderating role of mother-reported and observer-rated infant temperamental distress. Few direct associations emerged that were not further moderated by te…
A Role for Fetal Movement in Shaping Maternal Neurodevelopment
Emerging evidence suggests that the maternal brain undergoes significant change during pregnancy, which may serve to prepare the individual for caregiving, including increased maternal responsiveness. It has been proposed that fetal movement may play a role in shaping maternal neurodevelopment during pregnancy, including increasing responsiveness to infant cues. In the current study, we examined links between fetal movement and neural responses t…
Global variation in the assessment of psychological trauma in pregnancy
A history of psychologically traumatic experiences can impact health outcomes for pregnant people and their infants. The perception and prevalence of traumatic experiences during pregnancy may differ by geographical region. To better understand trends in how and what kinds of psychological trauma are assessed globally, we conducted a secondary analysis on a larger systematic review examining psychological trauma measurement in pregnancy. Through …
Racial and Ethnic Representation in Studies of Psychological Trauma During Pregnancy in the United States
Investigating associations between maternal neural responsivity and infant developmental outcomes
Maternal responsiveness plays an important role in child development. Event-related potentials can be used to examine neural mechanisms underlying maternal responsivity. Here, associations between neural markers of maternal responsivity and five child development domains-cognitive, language, motor, adaptive behavior, and social-emotional development-were examined in 94 mothers ( M age = 29.19 years; 41% African American, 28% Caucasian, 19% Hispan…
Psychology (22 obras) · Developmental psychology (18 obras) · Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior (13 obras) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (12 obras) · Clinical Psychology (9 obras) · Neuroscience (9 obras) · Cognitive psychology (8 obras) · Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum (8 obras) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (6 obras) · Cognition (6 obras)