Negative versus withdrawn maternal behavior: Differential associations with infant gray and white matter during the first 2 years of life

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 Withdrawn versus negative parenting may represent dimensionalized indices of early deprivation versus early threat, but no studies have assessed neural correlates of withdrawn versus negative parenting in infancy.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 Withdrawn and negative/inappropriate aspects of maternal behavior were coded from the Still-Face Paradigm at four months infant age.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.

Automated summary

This study found that maternal withdrawal is associated with lower infant gray matter volume (GMV), while negative/inappropriate interaction is associated with lower overall white matter volume (WMV). Maternal withdrawal is also associated with reduced right hippocampal volume at older ages.