Longitudinal Associations between the Quality of Mother-Infant Interactions and Brain Development across Infancy

Abstract

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 lab when infants were 5, 10, and 24 months of age (final N = 215). At each visit, child resting 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 24 months, as well as increases in power between 5 and 10 months, and between 10 and 24 months. These findings provide rare support for the hypothesis that normative variation in parenting quality may contribute to brain development among typically-developing infants.