Neonatal hippocampal volume moderates the effects of early postnatal enrichment on cognitive development

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

John H. Gilmore¹  Jerod M. Rasmussen²  Judith Overfeld³  Martin A. Styner³  Sonja Entringer³  Claudia Buss⁴  Pathik D. Wadhwa⁴  Christine M. Heim⁵ 

[1] Department of Biobehavioral Health, College of Health and Human Development, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA;Development, Health, and Disease Research Program, University of California, Irvine, Orange, CA, USA;Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Department of Medical Psychology, Berlin, Germany;Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA;Development, Health, and Disease Research Program, University of California, Irvine, Orange, CA, USA;

关键词: Cognitive development;    Differential susceptibility;    Environmental enrichment;    Hippocampus;    Infancy;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Environmental enrichment, particularly during the early life phases of enhanced neuroplasticity, can stimulate cognitive development. However, individuals exhibit considerable variation in their response to environmental enrichment. Recent evidence suggests that certain neurophenotypes such as hippocampal size may index inter-individual differences in sensitivity to environmental conditions. We conducted a prospective, longitudinal investigation in a cohort of 75 mother-child dyads to investigate whether neonatal hippocampal volume moderates the effects of the postnatal environment on cognitive development. Newborn hippocampal volume was quantified shortly after birth (26.2 ± 12.5 days) by structural MRI. Measures of infant environmental enrichment (assessed by the IT-HOME) and cognitive state (assessed by the Bayley-III) were obtained at 6 months of age (6.09 ± 1.43 months). The interaction between neonatal hippocampal volume and enrichment predicted infant cognitive development (b = 0.01, 95 % CI [0.00, 0.02], t = 2.08, p = .04), suggesting that exposure to a stimulating environment had a larger beneficial effect on cognitive outcomes among infants with a larger hippocampus as neonates. Our findings suggest that the effects of the postnatal environment on infant cognitive development are conditioned, in part, upon characteristics of the newborn brain, and that newborn hippocampal volume is a candidate neurophenotype in this context.

【 授权许可】

Unknown