Maternal overprotection in childhood is associated with amygdala reactivity and structural connectivity in adulthood

Neighborhood disadvantage and parenting predict longitudinal clustering of uncinate fasciculus microstructural integrity and clinical symptomatology in adolescents

Parenting behaviors and neighborhood environment influence the development of adolescents' brains and behaviors. Simultaneous trajectories of brain and behavior, however, are understudied, especially in these environmental contexts. In this four-wave study spanning 9-18 years of age (N=224 at baseline, N=138 at final assessment) we used longitudinal k-means clustering to identify clusters of participants with distinct trajectories of uncinate fasciculus (UF) fractional anisotropy (FA) and anxiety symptoms; we examined behavioral outcomes and identified environmental factors that predicted cluster membership. We identified three clusters of participants: 1) high UF FA and low symptoms ("low-risk"); 2) low UF FA and high symptoms ("high-risk"); and 3) low UF FA and low symptoms ("resilient"). Adolescents in disadvantaged neighborhoods were more likely to be in the resilient than high-risk cluster if they also experienced maternal warmth. Thus, neighborhood disadvantage may confer neural risk for psychopathology that can be buffered by maternal warmth, highlighting the importance of considering multiple environmental influences in understanding emotional and neural development in youth.

Parental overcontrol is associated with dysmorphic concern severity: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Dysmorphic concern (DC) is a symptom affecting both clinical and non-clinical populations, with a severe impact on individuals' physical and psychological well-being. While Childhood Trauma (CT) has been identified as a risk factor for DC, there is a lack of research on a specific form of CT, that is, parental overcontrol. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate the association between DC and parental overcontrol in a community sample of adults, controlling for other forms of CT and potential confounding variables.

METHOD

714 adults (508 females; mean age: 30.29 ± 11.67 years; age range: 18-77) participated in an online survey including the Body Image Concern Inventory (BICI), the Overcontrol subscale of the Measure Of Parental Style, and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire - Short Form (CTQ-SF).

RESULTS

Parental overcontrol was independently associated with DC symptoms (β = 0.111; p = .005; CI = [0.119;0.666]), even after controlling for other forms of CT and sociodemographic and clinical confounding variables.

LIMITATIONS

The cross-sectional design of the study, the unbalanced sex ratio, the retrospective self-reported data about parental overcontrol and CT should be considered.

CONCLUSIONS

This finding suggests that parental overcontrol may play a role in the development and maintenance of DC symptoms, remarking the urge to take more into account parental overcontrol in the assessment of CT.

Fear signals vulnerability and appeasement, not threat

Humans are not only fearful apes, but we also communicate our fear using social cues. Social fear displays typically elicit care and assistance in the real world and the lab. But in the psychology and neuroscience literature fearful expressions are commonly interpreted as "threat cues." The fearful ape hypothesis suggests that fearful expressions should be instead considered appeasement and vulnerability cues.

The association between pregnancy-related anxiety and behavioral development in 18-month-old children: The mediating effects of parenting styles and breastfeeding methods

BACKGROUND

Pregnancy-related anxiety (PRA) is a distinct type of anxiety from general anxiety, affects many pregnant women, and is correlated with poor behavioral development in children. However, the mediation paths were unclear.

METHODS

A total of 2032 mother-infant pairs from the Ma'anshan Birth Cohort were included in the current study. Maternal PRA was assessed in the second and third trimesters. Children's behavioral development was evaluated at the age of 18 months. In addition, information on parenting styles and breastfeeding methods was obtained at postpartum. Multivariate regression and structural equation modeling were used to examine the associations between maternal PRA and children's behavioral development.

RESULTS

Significant intercorrelations were found between maternal PRA, the potential mediators (parenting styles and breastfeeding methods), and 18-month-old children's ASQ scores. Parenting styles played an intermediary role in the relationship between maternal PRA and children's behavioral development (β = 0.030, 95 % confidence interval: 0.017-0.051), and the mediating effect accounted for 29.1 % of the total effect. However, breastfeeding methods did not mediate the link between PRA and children's behavior.

LIMITATIONS

Depression and postpartum anxiety were not controlled for in our analysis, which left us unable to estimate the independent impact of PRA on children's behavior.

CONCLUSIONS

Parenting rather than breastfeeding is the mediating factor of behavioral problems in children caused by PRA.

Newborns' Bonding and Attachment, Their Rhythms and Needs, Supporting Parents Appropriately: Guidelines for Interventions During the Perinatal Period from the French National College Of Midwives

A newborn's sleep-wake rhythms are very specific, neurologically determined, and different from the pattern of adults; they require an adaptable and predictable response by parents, which will promotes bonding and attachments, constructed at the early stages of development. It also will influence the quality of subsequent emotional relationships and adaptation to life events. This parental adaptability should receive multiprofessional support starting in the perinatal period, focused on the screening and management of psychological vulnerability.

Effects of parental care and overprotection on adolescents' diurnal cortisol profiles

Parental bonding is a strong determinant of children's health. One of the proposed pathways through which parenting impacts children's health is by altering the functioning of stress response systems. The current study aims to investigate the associations between two types of parental bonding (care and overprotection) and functioning of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis (i.e., diurnal cortisol secretion) in a sample of 255 healthy adolescents (46.3% girls; aged 11-14 years). Participants completed the Parental Bonding Instrument and provided eight cortisol samples across two consecutive days to assess patterns of diurnal cortisol secretion. Multilevel modeling and multiple linear regression were utilized to test the main effects and interactive effects of parental care and overprotection on adolescents' wakeup cortisol, cortisol awakening response, cortisol slope, and total cortisol secretion. Results showed that parental care was associated with higher cortisol levels at awakening, while parental overprotection was associated with lower cortisol levels at awakening. Parental overprotection, but not parental care, was associated with flatter cortisol slopes. No interactive effects between parental care and overprotection on cortisol parameters emerged. The current findings add to the existing literature on parenting behavior and HPA functioning by showing that parental care and overprotection differently regulated daily cortisol parameters implicated in health.

Early Adversity and Development: Parsing Heterogeneity and Identifying Pathways of Risk and Resilience

Adversity early in life is common and is a major risk factor for the onset of psychopathology. Delineating the neurodevelopmental pathways by which early adversity affects mental health is critical for early risk identification and targeted treatment approaches. A rapidly growing cross-species literature has facilitated advances in identifying the mechanisms linking adversity with psychopathology, specific dimensions of adversity and timing-related factors that differentially relate to outcomes, and protective factors that buffer against the effects of adversity. Yet, vast complexity and heterogeneity in early environments and neurodevelopmental trajectories contribute to the challenges of understanding risk and resilience in the context of early adversity. In this overview, the author highlights progress in four major areas-mechanisms, heterogeneity, developmental timing, and protective factors; synthesizes key challenges; and provides recommendations for future research that can facilitate progress in the field. Translation across species and ongoing refinement of conceptual models have strong potential to inform prevention and intervention strategies that can reduce the immense burden of psychopathology associated with early adversity.

Perceived parental over-protection in non clinical young adults is associated with affective vulnerability: A cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE

High levels of perceived parental over-protection are hypothesized to be related to relational problems, psychological distress, and development of psychiatric symptoms. Here, the main aim was to extend previous findings investigating the unique contribution of parental over-protection in predicting affective vulnerability.

METHOD

296 students were recruited and tested individually. All participants were administered self-report measures assessing parental styles [i.e., The Measure of Parental Style (MOPS)], several clinical dimensions (i.e., depressive symptoms, trait anxiety and alexithymia), and a checklist assessing socio-demographic variables.

RESULTS

Affective vulnerability was investigated combining anxiety, depression and alexithymia through principal axis factoring which accounted for 70.90% of the variance of the data. All MOPS subscale were positively associated with all clinical dimensions (r > 0.13; p < 0.05) and with the Affective Vulnerability factor (r > 0.25; p < 0.001). Among different forms of dysfunctional parenting, only maternal (β = 0.19; p = 0.007) and paternal (β = 0.18; p = 0.010) over-protection were independently associated with Affective Vulnerability in the linear regression analysis, even when controlling for sex, age, and education.

CONCLUSIONS

All forms of dysfunctional parenting investigated were associated with affective vulnerability. However, at a multivariate level, only maternal and paternal over-protection remained independently associated with affective vulnerability. This study contributes to our understanding of the role of parental over-protection as a risk factor for the development of affective vulnerability and on the potentially pathogenic role played by this parental style in the development of clinical and sub-clinical conditions.

Ecological stress, amygdala reactivity, and internalizing symptoms in preadolescence: Is parenting a buffer?

Ecological stress during adolescent development may increase the sensitivity to negative emotional processes that can contribute to the onset and progression of internalizing behaviors during preadolescence. Although a small number of studies have considered the link among the relations between ecological stress, amygdala reactivity, and internalizing symptoms in childhood and adolescence, these studies have largely been small, cross-sectional, and often do not consider unique roles of parenting or sex. In the current study, we evaluated the interrelations between ecological stress, amygdala reactivity, subsequent internalizing symptoms, and the moderating roles of parenting and sex among 9- and 10-year-old preadolescents from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study ®. A subset of participants who met a priori quality control criteria for bilateral amygdala activation during the EN-back faces versus places contrast (N = 7,385; Mean Age = 120 months, SD = 7.52; 49.5% Female) were included in the study. A confirmatory factor analysis was performed to create a latent variable of ecological stress, and multiple structural equation models were tested to evaluate the association among baseline ecological stress and internalizing symptoms one year later, the mediating role of amygdala reactivity, and moderating effects of parental acceptance and sex. The results revealed a significant association between ecological stress and subsequent internalizing symptoms, which was greater in males than females. There was no association between amygdala reactivity during the Faces versus Places contrast and ecological stress or subsequent internalizing symptoms, and no mediating role of amygdala or moderating effect of parental acceptance on the association between ecological stress and internalizing symptoms. An alternative mediation model was tested which revealed that there was a small mediating effect of parental acceptance on the association between ecological stress and internalizing symptoms, demonstrating lower internalizing symptoms among preadolescents one year later. Given the lack of association in brain function, ecological stress and internalizing symptoms in preadolescents in this registered report, effects from comparable small studies should be reconsidered in larger samples.

Caregiving influences on emotional learning and regulation: Applying a sensitive period model

Early caregiving experiences play a central role in shaping corticolimbic development and emotional learning and regulation. Given dynamic changes in corticolimbic maturation, the effects of caregiving experiences are likely to depend on the developmental timing of exposure. Cross-species evidence has identified timing-related differences in the effects of caregiving adversity. However, the extent to which developmental differences in associations between caregiving adversity and corticolimbic circuitry align with a sensitive period model has remained unclear. Converging evidence from studies of caregiver deprivation points to a sensitive period for caregiving influences on corticolimbic circuitry and emotional development during infancy. By contrast, differential associations between maltreatment and corticolimbic circuitry at specific ages in childhood and adolescence may reflect experience-dependent mechanisms of plasticity. Delineating sensitive periods of development and the precise experience-related mechanisms by which caregiving experiences influence corticolimbic development is essential for refining conceptual models and understanding risk and resilience following early adversity.

Normative range parenting and the developing brain: A scoping review and recommendations for future research

Studies of early adversity such as trauma, abuse, and neglect highlight the critical importance of quality caregiving in brain development and mental health. However, the impact of normative range variability in caregiving on such biobehavioral processes remains poorly understood. Thus, we lack an essential foundation for understanding broader, population-representative developmental mechanisms of risk and resilience. Here, we conduct a scoping review of the extant literature centered on the question, "Is variability in normative range parenting associated with variability in brain structure and function?" After removing duplicates and screening by title, abstract, and full-text, 23 records were included in a qualitative review. The most striking outcome of this review was not only how few studies have explored associations between brain development and normative range parenting, but also how little methodological consistency exists across published studies. In light of these limitations, we propose recommendations for future research on normative range parenting and brain development. In doing so, we hope to facilitate evidence-based research that will help inform policies and practices that yield optimal developmental trajectories and mental health as well as extend the literature on the neurodevelopmental impact of early life stress.

Mental health among Vietnamese urban late adolescents: The association of parenting styles

The aim of this study was to explore the correlation between parental styles and mental problems among Vietnamese high school students. In total, 16.4 percent of 757 eligible participants reported mental difficulties. Findings showed that being female and in grade 12 were risk factors to mental problems while living in Hue city was likely as a protective factor. The father’s warmth reduced the risk of having mental problems among adolescents, while an overprotective mother increased the risk. There was no correlation between authoritarianism of both mother and father and mental difficulties. These results suggest that a parenting program for parents might reduce the risk of mental problems among Vietnamese youth.