Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Fetal-Neonatal Neuroimaging & Developmental Science Center, Division of Newborn Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2023 Aug 15;44(12):4572-4589. doi: 10.1002/hbm.26401. Epub 2023 Jul 7.
Distinct neural effects of threat versus deprivation emerge by childhood, but little data are available in infancy. Withdrawn versus negative parenting may represent dimensionalized indices of early deprivation versus early threat, but no studies have assessed neural correlates of withdrawn versus negative parenting in infancy. The objective of this study was to separately assess the links of maternal withdrawal and maternal negative/inappropriate interaction with infant gray matter volume (GMV), white matter volume (WMV), amygdala, and hippocampal volume. Participants included 57 mother-infant dyads. Withdrawn and negative/inappropriate aspects of maternal behavior were coded from the Still-Face Paradigm at four months infant age. Between 4 and 24 months (M age = 12.28 months, SD = 5.99), during natural sleep, infants completed an MRI using a 3.0 T Siemens scanner. GMV, WMV, amygdala, and hippocampal volumes were extracted via automated segmentation. Diffusion weighted imaging volumetric data were also generated for major white matter tracts. Maternal withdrawal was associated with lower infant GMV. Negative/inappropriate interaction was associated with lower overall WMV. Age did not moderate these effects. Maternal withdrawal was further associated with reduced right hippocampal volume at older ages. Exploratory analyses of white matter tracts found that negative/inappropriate maternal behavior was specifically associated with reduced volume in the ventral language network. Results suggest that quality of day-to-day parenting is related to infant brain volumes during the first two years of life, with distinct aspects of interaction associated with distinct neural effects.
威胁与剥夺对儿童的神经影响不同，但婴儿期的数据很少。退缩与消极的育儿方式可能代表了早期剥夺与早期威胁的维度化指标，但没有研究评估婴儿期退缩与消极的育儿方式与大脑结构的关系。本研究的目的是分别评估母亲的退缩和消极/不适当的互动与婴儿灰质体积（GMV）、白质体积（WMV）、杏仁核和海马体体积之间的联系。参与者包括 57 对母婴对。在婴儿四个月大时，通过静止面孔范式对母亲的退缩和消极/不适当行为进行编码。在 4 至 24 个月（M 年龄= 12.28 个月，SD= 5.99 个月）期间，在自然睡眠中，婴儿使用 3.0T 西门子扫描仪进行了 MRI 扫描。通过自动分割提取 GMV、WMV、杏仁核和海马体体积。还生成了弥散加权成像容积数据，用于主要的白质束。母亲的退缩与婴儿 GMV 降低有关。消极/不适当的互动与整体 WMV 降低有关。年龄没有调节这些影响。母亲的退缩与年龄较大时右侧海马体体积减小有关。对大脑白质束的探索性分析发现，消极/不适当的母亲行为与腹侧语言网络的体积减小有关。研究结果表明，日常育儿质量与婴儿出生后两年内的大脑体积有关，不同的互动方式与不同的神经影响有关。
