Maternal parenting behavior and functional connectivity development in children: A longitudinal fMRI study

• Published in: Developmental cognitive neuroscience Vol. 48; p. 100946
• Main Authors: Pozzi, Elena, Vijayakumar, Nandita, Byrne, Michelle L., Bray, Katherine O., Seal, Marc, Richmond, Sally, Zalesky, Andrew, Whittle, Sarah L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Ltd 01-04-2021; Elsevier
• Subjects: Amygdala; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain development; Brain Mapping; Child; Cross-Sectional Studies; Female; Functional connectivity; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Maternal Behavior; Neural Pathways; Original Research; Parenting; Resting state networks; rsfMRI; Parenting; Functional connectivity; rsfMRI; Amygdala; Brain development; Resting state networks
• ISSN: 1878-9293; 1878-9307
• DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2021.100946

•Longitudinal study with two waves of imaging data and observational measures of parenting.•We examined functional connectivity of amygdala and selected large-scale networks.•We detected developmental effects as a function of parenting.•Positive parenting was associated with decreased control network connectivity.•Positive parenting behavior may promote resting state network maturation.
Parenting behavior is associated with internalizing symptoms in children, and cross-sectional research suggests that this association may be mediated by the influence of parenting on the development of frontoamygdala circuitry. However, longitudinal studies are lacking. Moreover, there is a paucity of studies that have investigated parenting and large-scale networks implicated in affective functioning. In this longitudinal study, data from 95 (52 female) children and their mothers were included. Children underwent magnetic resonance imaging that included a 6 min resting state sequence at wave 1 (mean age = 8.4 years) and wave 2 (mean age = 9.9 years). At wave 1, observational measures of positive and negative maternal behavior were collected during mother-child interactions. Region-of-interest analysis of the amygdala, and independent component and dual-regression analyses of the Default Mode Network (DMN), Executive Control Network (ECN) and the Salience Network (SN) were carried out. We identified developmental effects as a function of parenting: positive parenting was associated with decreased coactivation of the superior parietal lobule with the ECN at wave 2 compared to wave 1. Thus our findings provide preliminary longitudinal evidence that positive maternal behavior is associated with maturation of the connectivity between higher-order control networks.