Relative to other species, humans are reliant on their caregivers for an extended period of time, from infancy to young adulthood. As a consequence of this protracted development, there are numerous opportunities for family and parenting practices to affect a diverse range of systems (Bogin, 1997), including psychosocial, executive functioning, and emotion regulation processes (Steinberg, Elmen, & Mounts, 1989; Beyers & Goossens, 1999; Morris, Criss, Silk, & Houltberg, 2017). For this reason, parenting behaviors have been studied for the impact they have on the neural mechanisms underlying these systems (Farber, Gee & Hariri, 2020; Glynn & Baram, 2019; Callaghan & Tottenham, 2016). The default mode network (DMN) is a key neural network that has gained attention in developmental neuroscience due to its crucial role in cognitive and social functions, such as self-referential processes, thoughts about others, and contemplating the past or future (Andrews-Hanna, 2012). Further, atypical connectivity patterns in this network have been linked with different forms of psychopathology in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood (Umbach & Tottenham, 2020; Kim et al., 2016; Uddin et al., 2008; Zhao et al., 2007; Wise et al., 2017). Thus, while parental factors and altered DMN connectivity have independently been associated with the emergence of psychopathology, no studies have investigated both factors and their association with child psychopathology symptoms.
Parental acceptance-rejection theory (PARTheory), established by Rohner (1980), highlights the importance of parental warmth and its impact on multiple domains of social, emotional, and behavioral development. In support of this theory, a meta-analysis found that, across cultures, child perceptions of parental warmth and affection (both maternal and paternal) are associated with multiple positive psychological outcomes, including greater self-esteem and emotional stability (Khaleque, 2013). Greater parental warmth has been associated with lower internalizing and externalizing symptoms across cultures and shows an attenuating effect against anxiety and depression symptoms (Rothenberg et al., 2020; Butterfield et al., 2020). Conversely, parental warmth has been negatively associated with psychopathology across internalizing and externalizing dimensions, namely, callous-unemotional traits and depressed mood (Waller et al., 2018; Hipwell et al., 2008).
Childhood is characterized by periods of high neural plasticity resulting in significant changes and the reorganization of neural systems that improve the efficiency of brain function (Perrin et al., 2008; Huttenlocher & Dabholkar, 1997). The DMN, which encompasses the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus, and temporal parietal junction, is one such network that matures over the course of development (Wang, Taren, Tepfer, & Smith, 2019, Fair et al., 2008; Sato et al., 2014; Uddin, Supekar, Ryali, & Menon, 2011). Specifically, these regions demonstrate very low resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) until ages 7–9 years, increasing with age into young adulthood (Fair et al., 2008; Sato et al., 2014; Uddin et al., 2011). Delayed DMN maturation, assessed using a resting-state measure of fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuations in children and adolescents, has been associated with greater psychopathology, as rated on the Child Behavior Checklist (Sato et al., 2016; Achenbach, 2009). More specifically a recent study using data from the ABCD study found reduced DMN connectivity, suggesting a less mature pattern, associated with greater CU traits (Umbach & Tottenham, 2020)
Genetic studies suggest that only an estimated 23% of the functional connectivity of the DMN is heritable, which is lower than other neural networks (Yang et al., 2016). Thus, development of the DMN may be particularly susceptible to environmental factors, such as family and parental behaviors (Rebello, Moura, Pinaya, Rohde, & Sato, 2018; Zeev-Wolf, Levy, Goldstein, Zagoory-Sharon, & Feldman, 2019; Dégeilh et al., 2018). Initial evidence suggests that normative variations in parenting and the family environment may influence the development of DMN connectivity. Adenzato et al. (2019) found that following a retrospective parental attachment memory induction task, participants with greater reported dysfunctional parenting showed weaker within-DMN electroencephalography connectivity. Longitudinal work has shown that when maternal parenting during early childhood supports child autonomy and independence, a more mature connectivity pattern, evidenced by stronger negative connectivity between the DMN and salience network, is observed at age 10 (Dégeilh et al., 2018).
As a bourgeoning area of research, there is still much to be explored regarding the effects of the environment, specifically positive parenting behaviors, on within-DMN RSFC, as well as the neural mechanisms underlying the relation between parenting behaviors and emotional and behavioral problems in late childhood. The Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, a longitudinal investigation of over 11,000 children funded by the National Institute of Health, offers a unique opportunity to explore these relations in a large, multi-cultural, national dataset. In the present study, we predicted that parental acceptance and warmth would be associated with fewer emotional and behavioral problems and that this association would be mediated by within-DMN RSFC. A broad measure of child problems was selected based on previous studies showing associations with DMN connectivity (Sato et al., 2016). As recommended by a recent review of neuroimaging studies examining associations between DMN development and environmental experiences in childhood (Rebello et al., 2018), sex differences in these associations were also explored.