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Early parental care is important for hippocampal maturation: Evidence from brain morphology in humans
Open accessAbstract
The effects of early life experience on later brain structure and function have been studied extensively in animals, yet the relationship between childhood experience and normal brain development in humans remains largely unknown. Using a unique longitudinal data set including ecologically valid in-home measures of early experience during childhood (at age 4 and 8 years) and high-resolution structural brain imaging during adolescence (mean age 14 years), we examined the effects on later brain morphology of two dimensions of early experience: parental nurturance and environmental stimulation. Parental nurturance at age 4 predicts the volume of the left hippocampus in adolescence, with better nurturance associated with smaller hippocampal volume. In contrast, environmental stimulation did not correlate with hippocampal volume. Moreover, the association between hippocampal volume and parental nurturance disappears at age 8, supporting the existence of a sensitive developmental period for brain maturation. These findings indicate that variation in normal childhood experience is associated with differences in brain morphology, and hippocampal volume is specifically associated with early parental nurturance. Our results provide neuroimaging evidence supporting the important role of warm parental care during early childhood for brain maturation.
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“Given that separate neurobiological systems may support receptivity to emotional versus cognitive input (Avants et al., 2015; Rao et al., 2010), it is possible that some children are especially sensitive to one dimension of caregiver input but not the other.”
From The neglect–enrichment continuum: Characterizing variation in early caregiving environments (2019) · cites this paper as Rao et al., 2010
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“early emotional input was associated with memory functioning and hippocampal volume in adolescence, whereas cognitive input was associated with language development and cortical thickness (Avants et al., 2015; Farah et al., 2008; Rao et al., 2010).”
From The neglect–enrichment continuum: Characterizing variation in early caregiving environments (2019) · cites this paper as Rao et al., 2010
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Metadata
- Authors
- Rao, H., Betancourt, L., Giannetta, J. M., Brodsky, N. L., Korczykowski, M., Avants, B. B., Gee, J. C., Wang, J., Hurt, H., Detre, J. A., & Farah, M. J.
- Affiliations
- Sun Yat-sen University (CN)
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (US)
- Corresponding author
- Rao, Hengyi
- Farah, Martha J.
- Venue
- NeuroImage
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2010-01
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1144-1150
- ISSN
- 1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2764790
- OpenAlex
- W2117517075
- Cited by
- 178
- References
- 56
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 20
- FWCI
- 11.70
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- NeuroImage (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Sun Yat-sen University
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA014129, DA-015149, R01DA015149, R01DA014129)
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (P30NS045839)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD043078, R01HD055689, HD055689)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Keywords
- parental nurturance, hippocampal volume, hippocampal maturation, brain structure, environmental stimulation, sensitive period, childhood experiences, adolescence, brain development, home-based assessment
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Aging, Black or African American, Brain, Child, Child Abuse, Child, Preschool, Environment, Female, Hippocampus, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Parents
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