Chajes Johanna R, Stern Jessica A, Kelsey Caroline M, Grossmann Tobias
Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States.
Division of Developmental Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States.
Front Neurosci. 2022 Jun 10;16:892482. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2022.892482. eCollection 2022.
Infancy is a sensitive period of human brain development that is plastically shaped by environmental factors. Both proximal factors, such as sensitive parenting, and distal factors, such as socioeconomic status (SES), are known predictors of individual differences in structural and functional brain systems across the lifespan, yet it is unclear how these familial and contextual factors work together to shape functional brain development during infancy, particularly during the first months of life. In the current study, we examined pre-registered hypotheses regarding the interplay between these factors to assess how maternal sensitivity, within the broader context of socioeconomic variation, relates to the development of functional connectivity in long-range cortical brain networks. Specifically, we measured resting-state functional connectivity in three cortical brain networks (fronto-parietal network, default mode network, homologous-interhemispheric connectivity) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and examined the associations between maternal sensitivity, SES, and functional connectivity in a sample of 5-month-old infants and their mothers ( = 50 dyads). Results showed that all three networks were detectable during a passive viewing task, and that maternal sensitivity was positively associated with functional connectivity in the default mode network, such that infants with more sensitive mothers exhibited enhanced functional connectivity in this network. Contrary to hypotheses, we did not observe any associations of SES with functional connectivity in the brain networks assessed in this study. This suggests that at 5 months of age, maternal sensitivity is an important proximal environmental factor associated with individual differences in functional connectivity in a long-range cortical brain network implicated in a host of emotional and social-cognitive brain processes.
婴儿期是人类大脑发育的敏感期，其发育受到环境因素的可塑性塑造。已知近端因素，如敏感的养育方式，以及远端因素，如社会经济地位（SES），是个体在整个生命周期中大脑结构和功能系统差异的预测指标，但尚不清楚这些家庭和环境因素如何共同作用，在婴儿期，尤其是生命的最初几个月，塑造大脑功能发育。在本研究中，我们检验了关于这些因素之间相互作用的预先注册的假设，以评估在社会经济差异的更广泛背景下，母亲的敏感性如何与远距离皮质脑网络中功能连接的发展相关。具体而言，我们使用功能近红外光谱（fNIRS）测量了三个皮质脑网络（额顶叶网络、默认模式网络、同源半球间连接）的静息态功能连接，并在5个月大的婴儿及其母亲的样本（n = 50对）中检验了母亲敏感性、SES和功能连接之间的关联。结果表明，在被动观看任务期间，所有三个网络均可检测到，并且母亲的敏感性与默认模式网络中的功能连接呈正相关，即母亲更敏感的婴儿在该网络中表现出更强的功能连接。与假设相反，我们在本研究评估的脑网络中未观察到SES与功能连接之间的任何关联。这表明，在5个月大时，母亲的敏感性是一个重要的近端环境因素，与涉及一系列情感和社会认知脑过程的远距离皮质脑网络中功能连接的个体差异有关。
