Abstract
Executive functions (EFs) – a set of cognitive control abilities – mediate resilience to stress and are associated with academic achievement and health throughout life. They are crucially linked to prefrontal cortex function as well as to other cortical and subcortical brain functions, which are maturing throughout childhood at different rates. Recent behavioral research suggested that children’s EFs were related to parenting quality and child attachment security, but the neural correlates of these associations are unknown. With this study we tested in 4- to 6-year-old healthy children (N = 27) how emotional availability (EA) of the mother-child-interaction was associated with behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of response inhibition (a core EF) in a Go/Nogo task, using event-related potential recordings (ERPs), and with behavioral performance in a Delay of Gratification (DoG) and a Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task (HTKS). Our data showed that the Go/Nogo task modulated children’s ERP components resembling adult electrophysiological indices of response inhibition - the N2 and P3/LPC ERPs-, but the children’s N2 and P3/LPC ERPs showed longer latencies. Higher maternal autonomy-fostering behavior and greater child responsiveness were significantly associated with smaller children’s N2 Go/Nogo effects at fronto-central and parietal sites and with greater Go/Nogo effects in the N2 time window at occipital sites, over and above children’s age and intelligence. Additionally, greater maternal sensitivity and a higher dyadic EA quality of the mother-child-interaction went along with greater occipital Go/Nogo effects in the N2 time window, but this effect clearly diminished when we controlled for children’s age and intelligence. Higher maternal autonomy-support was also positively associated with better HTKS performance, and higher dyadic EA quality went along with higher HTKS and DoG scores. However, no significant associations were found between EA variables and the behavioral response inhibition measures of the Go/Nogo task. Our results suggest that parenting qualities modulate the functionality of neural circuits involved in response inhibition, an important component of EFs. This finding, thus, indicates that parent–child interactions shape the neurocognitive development underlying EFs.
Highlights
Parenting and the quality of parent–child relationship are crucial for children’s emotional development and the establishment of attachment patterns (Bowlby, 1969; Ainsworth and Bell, 1970)
When we controlled for children’s age and intelligence, we found that smaller midline parietal N2 Go/Nogo effects were significantly related to higher maternal structuring and nonintrusiveness, and that smaller right frontocentral N2 Go/Nogo effects were associated with higher maternal structuring
Our results demonstrated that emotional availability (EA) of the mother–child interaction is significantly associated with electrophysiological correlates of response inhibition during the Go/Nogo task in preschool children
Summary
Parenting and the quality of parent–child relationship are crucial for children’s emotional development and the establishment of attachment patterns (Bowlby, 1969; Ainsworth and Bell, 1970). There is growing evidence that the quality of parent– child relationship shapes children’s EFs skills (e.g., Belsky et al, 2007; Bernier et al, 2010, 2012; Blair et al, 2011; DilworthBart, 2012; Towe-Goodman et al, 2014; Bindman et al, 2015). The term EFs refers to higher-order cognitive skills, that allow for flexible, adaptive and goal-oriented behavior (e.g., Norman and Shallice, 1986). According to a predominant theory of EF, proposed by Miyake et al (2000), the EF construct comprises three separable, but interrelated components – i.e., working memory updating, inhibition, and shifting. The interrelations between the dissociable components point to a “common mechanism across different EFs” (Miyake et al, 2000). Several researchers have suggested that an attention system constitutes the core of EFs, e.g., as proposed in the framework of the supervisory attentional system (Norman and Shallice, 1986), the theory of the executive attention network (Rueda et al, 2004; Posner and Rothbart, 2007) and in the concept of the controlled attention system (Engle et al, 1999)
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