Associations of Parenting Stress with Anterior Thalamic Radiations and Reuniens Nuclei in the Developing Brain

Abstract

Despite the importance of child-caregiver interactions in child development, the association between parenting stress and the brain development of children remains unclear. We investigated how parenting stress relates to neural connectivity in the white matter structures and whether it has any associations with volume of thalamic subfields in 47 typically developing children (24 girls, mean age: 8.96 years old). While parents completed the Parenting Stress Index (PSI), children underwent diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) scanning. The six PSI subscales reflecting child characteristics were negatively associated with the mean fractional anisotropy values of the bilateral anterior thalamic radiations (ATRs), bridging thalamus to the prefrontal cortex. Our exploratory analysis on thalamic subfields disclosed significant negative associations between the six PSI subscales and the volume of the right reuniens nuclei (MV-re) that is situated in the medial ventral thalamus and mediates interaction between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. Considering a reduced white matter integrity in bilateral ATRs and smaller MV-re volume, parenting stress stemming from child-related features may reflect inefficient exchange of information via thalamocortical circuits in the developing brain. Our findings indicate the significance of interactions in child-caregiver dyads in brain development and particularly, thalamic structures.