Evidence suggests that maltreatment shapes the child’s brain. Little is known, however, about how normal variation in parenting influences the child neurodevelopment. We examined whether harsh parenting is associated with the brain morphology in 2,410 children from a population-based cohort. Mothers and fathers independently reported harsh parenting at child age 3 years. Structural and diffusion-weighted brain morphological measures were acquired with MRI scans at age 10 years. We explored whether associations between parenting and brain morphology were explained by co-occurring adversities, and whether there was a joint effect of both parents’ harsh parenting. Maternal harsh parenting was associated with smaller total gray (β = −0.05 (95%CI = −0.08; −0.01)), cerebral white matter and amygdala volumes (β = −0.04 (95%CI = −0.07; 0)). These associations were also observed with the combined harsh parenting measure and were robust to the adjustment for multiple confounding factors. Similar associations, although non-significant, were found between paternal parenting and these brain outcomes. Maternal and paternal harsh parenting were not associated with the hippocampus or the white matter microstructural metrics. We found a long-term association between harsh parenting and the global brain and amygdala volumes in preadolescents, suggesting that adverse rearing environments common in the general population are related to child brain morphology.

有证据表明，虐待塑造了孩子的大脑。然而，关于育儿的正常变化如何影响儿童的神经发育，我们知之甚少。我们检查了来自基于人群的队列中的 2,410 名儿童的严酷教养是否与大脑形态有关。母亲和父亲们独立报告了在孩子 3 岁时严厉的养育方式。在 10 岁时通过 MRI 扫描获得结构和弥散加权脑形态测量。我们探讨了养育与大脑形态之间的关联是否可以通过同时发生的逆境来解释，以及父母双方严厉的养育是否存在共同影响。母亲严厉的养育与较小的总灰质（β = -0.05（95%CI = -0.08；-0.01））、脑白质和杏仁核体积（β = -0.04（95%CI = -0.07；0））相关。这些关联也通过联合严厉的育儿措施观察到，并且对多种混杂因素的调整具有稳健性。在父亲养育方式和这些大脑结果之间发现了类似的关联，尽管不显着。母亲和父亲严厉的养育方式与海马体或白质微结构指标无关。我们发现，严酷的养育方式与青春期前的全球大脑和杏仁核体积之间存在长期关联，这表明一般人群中常见的不良养育环境与儿童大脑形态有关。