Parenting Behaviors over Time and their Effects on Cortical and Limbic Brain Structure in Children and Young Adults

Parenting behaviors significantly impact children's development, including maturation of emotion regulation skills and associated brain regions (e.g., amygdala, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex). Adaptive and maladaptive parenting behaviors have been associated with brain structure of children/adolescents; however, longitudinal studies of parenting behaviors and their links to neural correlates remain scarce. Two community cohorts were analyzed: cohort 1 (N=40) with childhood parenting measures and neuroimaging, cohort 2 with repeated-measures parenting reports from childhood to adolescence (ages 7-17; N=1482) and neuroimaging at age 22 (n=134). Changes in parenting behaviors, parent-child alignment at age 11, and associations between early parenting behaviors and brain structure (volume/cortical thickness) in childhood (cohort 1) and late adolescence/young adulthood (cohort 2) were assessed using linear mixed models, regressions and correlations. Results show that adaptive parenting (involvement, positive parenting) and most maladaptive behaviors (inconsistent discipline, corporal punishment) decreased with children’s age, while poor monitoring increased. Parent-child reports at age 11 were positively correlated. Positive parenting behaviors in childhood were associated with larger amygdala volume in children but smaller amygdala volume in a matched subgroup of late adolescents/young adults. Corporal punishment was associated with reduced left dorsolateral prefrontal thickness in children. These associations were robust to adjustment for multiple potential confounders, including parental and child health. In conclusion, consistent with past evidence, adaptive parenting behaviors showed developmentally specific associations with limbic brain structures; maladaptive parenting behaviors were associated with alterations in prefrontal brain structure during childhood. Our findings indicate that variations in positive parenting are associated with neurodevelopment in an age-dependent manner.