Racial discrimination and bias are painful realities and increasingly recognized as detrimental to the health of adults and children.

These stressful experiences also appear to be transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy, altering the strength of infants’ brain circuits, according to a new study from researchers at Columbia, Yale, and Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.

The study found similar brain changes in infants whose mothers experienced stress from adapting to a new culture during pregnancy.

“A leading hypothesis would be that the connectivity changes that we see could reduce one’s ability to regulate their emotions and increase risk for mental health disorders,” says the study’s lead author Marisa Spann, PhD, the Herbert Irving Associate Professor of Medical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

“It remains to be seen if the connectivity differences we found lead to long-term mental health outcomes in children. Our team and others in the field still have the opportunity to test this.”

Previous research(link is external and opens in a new window) by Spann and colleagues has documented the impact of various forms of prenatal distress—depression, stress, and anxiety—on the infant brain. “We work with vulnerable and underrepresented populations, and the experience of stigma and discrimination are distressingly common,” Spann says. “This naturally led to discussions about the impact of other stressors, like discrimination and acculturation, on the infant brain.”