Maternal Sensitivity and Preschoolers’ Conditional Adaptation: Memory for Socio-Emotional Stimuli and Hippocampal Development

• In Event: 1-181 - Normative Variation in Early Caregiving: Longitudinal Links to Brain Structure and Function

Integrative Statement

Within the field of attachment, memories of past experience are expected to guide the way we navigate challenges and incorporate information into mental schemas used in future regulation. These mental schemas, or “attachment working models,” have been discussed as conditionally adaptive strategies, beneficial when the caregiving environment is less-than-sensitive. Still, when caregiving is found to impact neuroanatomical structures and processes important to incorporating past experience into future regulation, relations are often discussed as “deficits” rather than in light of conditional-adaptation. Here, we expand upon findings previously observed within our Southeast Asian cohort, suggesting that in early infancy, less sensitive care accelerates infants’ relational memory and hippocampal development, but decreases fMRI based connectivity associated with fear extinction. We hypothesize offspring will continue to show evidence of hippocampal conditional adaptation at preschool.

When offspring were six months, maternal sensitivity was assessed via the “mini Maternal Behavior Q-Sort for video.” At 3.5 years, 224 offspring (113 female) took part in Relational Memory tasks, with socioemotional (happy and angry faces) and non-socioemotional (food) stimuli, as well as executive functioning tasks. Then, at 4.5 years, 99 children (46 male) participated in MRI and DTI scans quantifying hippocampal volume and microstructure (i.e., fractional anisotropy [FA] and mean diffusivity [MD]).

After controlling for maternal income, education, and time spent with the mother, increased maternal sensitivity marginally predicted better relational memory when stimuli were non-socioemotional (B = 0.127, p = .07) but worse memory when stimuli were socioemotional (B = -0.135, p = .051). Modulation by emotional quality was not limited to memory functioning: Maternal sensitivity predicted better executive functioning only when stimuli were non-socioemotional (Delay Task: B = 0.170, p = .04, n = 158; and DCCS: Exp[B] = 2.636, p = .043, n = 179). With regard to neural development, controlling for similar factors, maternal sensitivity predicted less left hippocampal FA at 4.5 years (β = -0.241, p = .043, df = 68), but not hippocampal volume.

In keeping with animal work indicating that parental signals associated with “harsher environments,” predispose offspring to differentially utilize emotional versus non-emotional information, and/or “grow up fast,” we observed the relation between early life maternal sensitivity and preschool memory and executive function to be modulated by emotional content. Moreover, our microstructure findings suggest that early life exposure to insensitive care shapes patterns of hippocampal development during preschool. Findings will be discussed in reference to normative brain development, and within the context of conditional adaptation. The implication for the development of attachment strategies will also be explored.

Authors

• Anne Rifkin-Graboi, Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences
  Presenting Author

• Daniel Wen, National University Singapore
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anu Sathayapan, Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hui Jun Chong, Health Promotion Board
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joann Poh, Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences
  Non-Presenting Author

• Annie Lee, National University Singapore
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lit Wee Sim, Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marielle Fortier, KK Women's and Children's Hospital
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lynette Shek, National University Hospital, Singapore
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kok Hian Tan, KK Women's & Children's Hospital
  Non-Presenting Author

• Fabian Yap, KK Women's and Children's Hospital
  Non-Presenting Author

• Peter D. Gluckman, Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yap-Seng Chong, Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences
  Non-Presenting Author

• Michael J. Meaney, Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anqi Qiu, National University of Singapore
  Non-Presenting Author