Longitudinal implications of parental intrusiveness: associations with amygdala responses to parent and emotional reactivity in adolescence
Date
2022
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Intrusive parenting poses a significant challenge to healthy neurobiological development and is associated with a myriad of maladaptive outcomes. The present study sought to examine the longitudinal implications of early intrusive parenting experiences on adolescents’ neurobiological representations of their parent, and the implications for maladaptive emotion regulation. We tested these associations in an understudied sample (N=46) with a history of Child Protective Services involvement. We found that differential parental intrusiveness in infancy was associated with differential neurobiological representations of parents in adolescence. The associated brain regions, including the left amygdala, bilateral PFC (e.g., OFC and mPFC), the cingulate cortex (e.g., ventral, middle, and dorsal), and the left hippocampus, were related to emotion regulation. Further analyses showed that early experiences of intrusive parenting were positively associated with left amygdala reactivity to parental cues. The heightened reactivity of the left amygdala was also associated with adolescent maladaptive emotional reactivity. Finally, we replicated prior findings of early experiences of intrusive parenting on maladaptive emotional reactivity in an adolescent sample. In sum, we found evidence for the potentially harmful ways in which early experiences of intrusive parenting may influence brain development and emotional development in adolescence. The potential clinical and research implications of our findings were discussed.
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Keywords
Amygdala, Emotional reactivity, Longitudinal study, Parental intrusiveness