Resting state functional connectivity associated with maternal anxiety: preliminary evidence that infant rsFC moderates the association between behavioral inhibition and anxiety/depression

Postnatal maternal anxiety shapes caregiver and infant behavior. Yet, the relationship with infant brain function remains unclear. We examine the relation of maternal anxiety with infant resting state functional connectivity (rsFC). To evaluate the clinical significance of the rsFC networks identified, exploratory analyses tested whether the rsFC associated with maternal anxiety moderates risk trajectories from infant behavioral inhibition (BI) to childhood anxiety/depression symptoms. Four-month-old infants (N = 60) underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and mothers completed the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). Analyses included 49 infants with high-quality imaging and maternal anxiety data. In the longitudinal subsample (n = 21), BI was observed at 14 months, and anxiety/depression symptoms were assessed at 4-6 years using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Using whole-brain network enrichment analyses, we identified cortical network pairs that were significantly associated with maternal anxiety. Connectivity estimates from significant network pairs were averaged and tested as moderators of infant BI and childhood anxiety/depression association. Infants exposed to higher maternal anxiety showed an altered limbic-dorsal attention network (DAN) and default mode (DMN)-DAN. In both network pairs, negative and positive node-to-node pairs were identified, indicating that some regional connections exhibited stronger coupling, while others exhibited weaker coupling. Results demonstrated that DMN-DAN rsFC moderated developmental pathways: greater BI was associated with higher early-childhood anxiety/depression among infants with stronger DMN-DAN connectivity. Maternal anxiety is related to infant brain connectivity, and these neural differences moderate BI-related risk for anxiety/depression. DMN-DAN coupling may serve as an early marker of infants at risk for anxiety/depression. Given the small longitudinal sample, the moderation finding should be considered exploratory and requires replication in a larger, independent cohort.