Stress and Brain Development Relationships

The relationship between early stress and brain development has been a central focus of PIRI’s research. This work has led to longitudinal studies in high-risk preterm infants (NHMRC, 2006–2013) and in children whose mothers were treated with cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for depression during pregnancy (NARSAD, 2016–2017).

Preterm infants:
PremieStart, developed by PIRI, is a parent-focused intervention designed to reduce stress experienced by preterm infants during their stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Parents are trained to recognise and respond to their infant’s stress signals (for more information on the intervention click here). Landmark studies have demonstrated improvements in infant brain structure and white matter connectivity, visible on MRI scans (Milgrom et al., 2010), as well as positive effects on early infant development following this stress-reduction intervention (Milgrom et al., 2013).

Primary outcomes from a large NHMRC-funded randomised controlled trial of PremieStart have been published (Milgrom, Martin, et al., 2019), with additional peer-reviewed publications in preparation. PIRI is currently funded by the Austin Medical Research Fund to conduct a nine-year follow-up examining academic achievement in children from this cohort.

Children whose mothers were treated with CBT for antenatal depression:
In a recent exploratory study, PIRI examined whether CBT for maternal antenatal depression was associated with changes in offspring brain structure. Promising findings indicated increased cortical thickness, increased grey matter concentration, and altered connectivity across several brain regions (Bleker, Milgrom, et al., 2019), suggesting that effective treatment during pregnancy may influence child neurodevelopment.