How a mother's encouragement affects a young child's brain reward response
Maternal Positive Affect Socialization and Child Neural Reward Response
This project checks whether teaching moms to encourage their preschoolers' positive emotions can boost the children's brain responses to rewards.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of Pittsburgh at Pittsburgh NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Pittsburgh, United States) |
| Project ID | NIH-11146425 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
You and your young child would take part in a program where mothers learn emotion-coaching techniques to support positive feelings. Researchers will use safe, noninvasive EEG recordings (event-related potentials) to measure children's brain responses to rewarding events before and after the parenting program. The goal is to see if changes in how mothers respond to their child's positive emotions lead to immediate changes in the child's brain reward circuitry. Sessions will focus on real-life interactions during the preschool years when children's emotional and self-regulation skills are developing rapidly.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: Ideal candidates are preschool-aged children (and their mothers), especially families open to participating in parent coaching and EEG visits at the research site.
Not a fit: Older children, teens, adults, or families unable to attend in-person intervention and EEG visits are unlikely to receive direct benefit from this project.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this approach could lead to parent-training methods that improve young children's motivation, pleasure, and lower future depression risk by strengthening reward-related brain function.
How similar studies have performed: Prior parent emotion-coaching programs have improved children's emotional behavior, but producing measurable changes in young children's neural reward responses is a newer and less-established goal.
Where this research is happening
Pittsburgh, United States
- University of Pittsburgh at Pittsburgh — Pittsburgh, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Morgan, Judith K. — University of Pittsburgh at Pittsburgh
- Study coordinator: Morgan, Judith K.
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.