Genetic, behavioural and cognitive mechanisms underpinning the association between mother and offspring mental health problems: mental (M) health (H) intergenerational transmission (INT) -(MHINT)

ended

Despite decades of research, and the introduction of parenting interventions, children of mentally ill mothers remain substantially more likely to have mental health problems themselves. I propose to shed new light on why mental health problems in a mother are passed on to her child, and help break this reinforcing cycle of mental health risk across generations. In order to harness the potential of modifying parenting for the prevention of child mental health risk, I will study parenting using more detailed, ecologically valid and genetically sensitive designs than have been done before. Objectives: 1: To investigate the respective role of genetic and environmental (chiefly parenting) mechanisms in explaining associations between mother and child mental health. HOW: using a consortium of international cohorts with intergenerational genetic and phenotypic data (n>10,000) and, for the first time, modeling genetic risk which is and is not transmitted from mother to child to test alternative hypotheses. 2: To identify behavioural manifestation of maternal mental health, in observed mother-infant interaction, in an ecologically valid way. HOW: recording 300 mother- child dyads at home, using novel wearable cameras, in the next generation of a key cohort (ALSPAC-G2). 3: To identify cognitive underpinnings of maternal behaviour. HOW: including cognitive tasks (with eye tracking) as new measures in ALSPAC-G2, applying computational models to cognitive and (uniquely) real life data (measured in 2). 4: To establish whether modification of maternal parenting (highlighted in 1-3), changes child mental health. HOW: systematic review of parenting intervention trials and new synthesis methods to extract which intervention components reduce child mental health problems. My study will provide critical new evidence regarding the nature of parenting interventions that have potential to improve child mental health and break intergenerational transmission of mental health problems.