Associations between maternal negative affect and adolescent's neural response to peer evaluation

Parenting is often implicated as a potential source of individual differences in youths’ emotional information processing. The present study examined whether parental affect is related to an important aspect of adolescent emotional development, response to peer evaluation. Specifically, we examined relations between maternal negative affect, observed during parent–adolescent discussion of an adolescent-nominated concern with which s/he wants parental support, and adolescent neural responses to peer evaluation in 40 emotionally healthy and depressed adolescents.

• Maternal negative affect relates to blunted neural response to peer acceptance, not rejection.

• All adolescents who faced negativity showed less activity in amygdala, insula, and left NAcc.

• Findings provide evidence for the role of maternal negative affect in altered reward processing.