Parenting quality is associated with child cognitive and executive functions (EF), which are important predictors of social and academic development. However, children vary in their susceptibility to parenting behaviors, and the neurobiological underpinnings of this susceptibility are poorly understood. In a prospective longitudinal study, we examined whether neonatal total brain volume (TBV) and subregions of interest (i.e., hippocampus (HC) and anterior cingulate gyrus (ACG)) moderate the association between maternal sensitivity and cognitive/EF development across early childhood. Neonates underwent a brain magnetic resonance imaging scan. Their cognitive performance and EF was characterized at 2.0 ± 0.1 years (N = 53) and at 4.9 ± 0.8 years (N = 36) of age. Maternal sensitivity was coded based on observation of a standardized play situation at 6-mo postpartum. Neonatal TBV moderated the association between maternal sensitivity and 2-year working memory as well as all 5-year cognitive outcomes, suggesting that the positive association between maternal sensitivity and child cognition was observed only among children with large or average but not small TBV as neonates. Similar patterns were observed for TBV-corrected HC and ACG volumes. The findings suggest that larger neonatal TBV, HC and ACG may underlie susceptibility to the environment and affect the degree to which parenting quality shapes long-term cognitive development.

养育质量与儿童的认知和执行功能（EF）相关，这是社会和学业发展的重要预测因素。然而，儿童对养育行为的敏感性各不相同，而这种敏感性的神经生物学基础却知之甚少。在一项前瞻性纵向研究中，我们检查了新生儿总脑容量 (TBV) 和感兴趣的亚区域（即海马 (HC) 和前扣带回 (ACG)）是否调节母亲敏感性与整个幼儿期认知/EF 发展之间的关联。新生儿接受了脑部磁共振成像扫描。他们的认知表现和 EF 在 2.0 ± 0.1 岁 (N = 53) 和 4.9 ± 0.8 岁 (N = 36) 时进行表征。产妇敏感性是根据产后 6 个月标准化游戏情况的观察进行编码的。新生儿 TBV 调节了母亲敏感性与 2 年工作记忆以及所有 5 年认知结果之间的关联，表明母亲敏感性与儿童认知之间的正相关仅在新生儿 TBV 较大或平均而不是较小的儿童中观察到。 TBV 校正的 HC 和 ACG 体积也观察到类似的模式。研究结果表明，较大的新生儿 TBV、HC 和 ACG 可能是对环境的易感性的基础，并影响养育质量对长期认知发展的影响程度。