Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Department of Medical Psychology.
Development, Health, and Disease Research Program, Departments of Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Epidemiology, University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine, Irvine, CA, USA.
Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2020 Oct;45:100826. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2020.100826. Epub 2020 Jul 10.
Parenting quality is associated with child cognitive and executive functions (EF), which are important predictors of social and academic development. However, children vary in their susceptibility to parenting behaviors, and the neurobiological underpinnings of this susceptibility are poorly understood. In a prospective longitudinal study, we examined whether neonatal total brain volume (TBV) and subregions of interest (i.e., hippocampus (HC) and anterior cingulate gyrus (ACG)) moderate the association between maternal sensitivity and cognitive/EF development across early childhood. Neonates underwent a brain magnetic resonance imaging scan. Their cognitive performance and EF was characterized at 2.0 ± 0.1 years (N = 53) and at 4.9 ± 0.8 years (N = 36) of age. Maternal sensitivity was coded based on observation of a standardized play situation at 6-mo postpartum. Neonatal TBV moderated the association between maternal sensitivity and 2-year working memory as well as all 5-year cognitive outcomes, suggesting that the positive association between maternal sensitivity and child cognition was observed only among children with large or average but not small TBV as neonates. Similar patterns were observed for TBV-corrected HC and ACG volumes. The findings suggest that larger neonatal TBV, HC and ACG may underlie susceptibility to the environment and affect the degree to which parenting quality shapes long-term cognitive development.
养育质量与儿童认知和执行功能（EF）有关，这些功能是社交和学业发展的重要预测因素。然而，儿童对养育行为的易感性存在差异，而这种易感性的神经生物学基础尚不清楚。在一项前瞻性纵向研究中，我们研究了新生儿全脑体积（TBV）和感兴趣的亚区（即海马体（HC）和前扣带皮层（ACG））是否调节了母亲敏感性与认知/EF 发展之间的关联在整个幼儿期。新生儿接受了大脑磁共振成像扫描。在 2.0 ± 0.1 岁（N = 53）和 4.9 ± 0.8 岁（N = 36）时评估他们的认知表现和 EF。母亲敏感性是根据产后 6 个月的标准化游戏情况观察得出的。新生儿 TBV 调节了母亲敏感性与 2 岁工作记忆以及所有 5 岁认知结果之间的关联，表明只有在新生儿时 TBV 较大或平均而非较小的儿童中，母亲敏感性与儿童认知之间的正相关才会出现。TBV 校正后的 HC 和 ACG 体积也观察到类似的模式。研究结果表明，较大的新生儿 TBV、HC 和 ACG 可能是对环境的敏感性的基础，并影响养育质量塑造长期认知发展的程度。
