Longitudinal Associations Between the Quality of Mother-Infant Interactions and Brain Development Across Infancy

The aim of this study was to investigate if normative variations in parenting relate to brain development among typically developing children. A sample of 352 mother-infant dyads came to the laboratory when infants were 5, 10, and 24months of age (final N=215). At each visit, child resting electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Mother-infant interactions were videotaped at the 5-month visit. The results indicated that higher quality maternal behavior during mother-infant interactions predicted higher frontal resting EEG power at 10 and 24months, as well as increases in power between 5 and 10months, and between 10 and 24months. These findings provide rare support for the hypothesis that normative variation in parenting quality may contribute to brain development among typically developing infants.