Fig. 3: Effects of in utero SSRI exposure in human adolescents.
From: Perinatal SSRI exposure impacts innate fear circuit activation and behavior in mice and humans
A The experimental timeline. At baseline mothers reported on their pregnancy and demographics. Children underwent an MRI scan approximately two years post-baseline, and mothers filled out the Child Behavioral Checklist (CBCL) to assess symptoms at that time and one year post-MRI. Created in BioRender. Zanni, G. (2025) https://BioRender.com/e26b462. B Left. In utero SSRI exposure is associated with increased CBCL symptoms, accounting for maternal lifetime depression and maternal anxiety and depressive symptoms. N = 97 SSRI+, N = 3876 SSRI-. Right. Maternal lifetime depression is also associated with increased offspring symptoms. C Left. In utero SSRI exposure is associated with increased amygdala, hippocampus, insula, putamen and thalamus activation to fearful-neutral faces, depicted as change in standard deviation of the BOLD response accounting for maternal lifetime depression and maternal anxiety and depressive symptoms. Right. Exposure to maternal lifetime depression does not result in significant differences in BOLD response to fearful-neutral faces. D Same analysis as (C) depicted as predicted means by group. N = 70 SSRI+, N = 2989 SSRI-. Left. In utero SSRI exposure is associated with increased BOLD activation to fearful-neutral faces. Right. Exposure to maternal lifetime depression does not result in differential BOLD response. Linear mixed effects models with propensity score weighting, 2-tailed, FDR-corrected. Error bars signify 95% confidence intervals. Precise p-values are reported in the main text. *p < 0.05; ***p < 0.005.
