Pathways to Depression in Women and Girls: Understanding Neural Correlates of Intergenerational Transmission of Major Depressive Disorder and the Role of Early-Onset Maternal Depression

Maternal depression history increases risk in offspring, but depression is heterogeneous, suggesting the need to study specific phenotypes (e.g., early-onset). Our results showed that early-onset maternal depression predicted blunted neural reward response—a marker of depression risk—in mothers and daughters, suggesting that this phenotype has implications for depression transmissibility.