PSYC 412 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Cortisol, Twin Study, Fetus
5 Apr 2019
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Lecture 16: depression ii: etiological and maintenance models of depression, biological factors, children of depressed parents are more likely to be depressed. One of the strongest risk factors for childhood depression. Children with a parent who was depressed as a child are 14x more likely to become depressed before the age of 13. Overall, rates of depression in the school-aged and adolescent children of depressed mothers have been reported to be between. Twin studies suggest heritability rates between 35% and. Variability is due to differences in measurement and sampling. Depression in moms is associated with increased levels of cortisol. Number of months a woman is depressed during pregnancy predicts elevated levels of cortisol when children are 6- to 7-years-of-age. A study documented that higher levels of maternal cortisol predicted greater fearfulness, but only for infants who were breastfed. One study documented that higher levels of cortisol in breastmilk were associated with greater negative affectivity at 3 months.
