Maternal depression, childhood resting-state brain connectivity, and adolescent depression during the COVID-19 outbreak

Adolescents of mothers with a history of depression are at two-to-five-fold increased risk for developing depression themselves. These adolescents may be especially vulnerable to depression during the COVID-19 pandemic. To better understand the complex vulnerability processes involved in the transmission of maternal depression risk to adolescent offspring in the context of the pandemic-related stress, we examined potential mediating and moderating factors that link maternal depression history and offspring depressive symptoms, including resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) and mothers’ depressive symptoms, in 85 adolescents during the pandemic. Adolescents’ pre-pandemic rs-FC between posterior and anterior cingulate cortex (PCC-ACC) moderated the association between maternal depression history and adolescents’ depressive symptoms during the pandemic, such that maternal depression history predicted adolescents’ symptoms only in youths with heightened pre-pandemic PCC-ACC rs-FC. Mothers’ depressive symptoms during pandemic mediated and moderated the link between maternal depression history and adolescents’ depressive symptoms; specifically, mothers with a history of depression had greater depressive symptoms during pandemic outbreak, which were, in turn, associated with offspring depressive symptoms. Additionally, maternal depression history predicted depressive symptoms in adolescents whose mothers had relatively lower depressive symptoms during the pandemic. Findings speak to the complex mediating and moderating processes involved in the transmission of maternal depression risk to adolescent offspring in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.