<b>Psychological Stress Adaptation: </b><b>Longitudinal Implications for Child Epigenetic and Psychological Outcomes</b>

<p dir="ltr">A combination of the developmental origins of health and disease framework and the dimensional model of adversity and psychopathology has led to the conceptualization of the physiological/psychological stress adaptation dimension, which measures prenatal stressors as a dimension of prenatal unpredictability rather than as cumulative or specific exposure risks. Prenatal stress literature has been testing cumulative and isolated measures of maternal stressors for several decades, finding robust associations with childhood epigenetic and anxiety outcomes. However, these methods have struggled to identify potential mechanisms by which maternal prenatal stress affects child development. One potential biological mechanism by which maternal stress reaches offspring is through epigenetic alterations. Therefore, the (1) first aim of the current dissertation was to test if a cross-sectional prenatal unpredictability score predicted a key theoretical biological pathway through which prenatal stressors may influence child anxiety and epigenetic outcomes. (2) My second aim was to test if DNA methylation at delivery is associated with epigenetic age at age 9 and childhood anxiety symptoms at age 10.5. Ultimately, a mediation model tested if epigenetic gestational age at delivery mediated the association between maternal report of prenatal unpredictability, childhood anxiety, and epigenetic age. Main research hypotheses were not supported in the current analysis. However, a sensitivity analysis found an association between prenatal unpredictability and epigenetic age at 7. Future directions will focus on improving the cross-sectional prenatal predictability score and potentially testing other biobehavioral mechanisms.</p>