# Investigating Links Between Dysfunctional Parenting and Infant Brain Connectivity on Development of Effortful Control

> **NIH NIH K01** · WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $165,361

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Deficits in effortful control (EC; top-down control of self-regulation involving inhibitory control and executive
attention) represent a major transdiagnostic risk factor for multiple psychiatric disorders in childhood.
Dysfunctional parenting is a strong predictor of impaired EC, making it a potent target for intervention.
Dysfunctional parenting includes behavioral deficits in parenting sensitivity [timely and appropriate responses to
changes in infant physical and emotional needs], along with cognitive deficits in maternal mind-mindedness
[MMM; attunement to infant mental states that govern goal-directed behavior]. MMM may underlie parenting
sensitivity, but prospective links remain unclear. MMM facilitates the transition from external caregiver-based
regulation to self-regulation in early childhood by providing the foundation for intentional mental-state talk to
regulate behavior. While adverse caregiving exposures have profound effects on brain structure, the extent that
MMM impacts infant brain structural and functional connectivity in key brain regions underlying EC during periods
of brain plasticity is unknown. This innovative proposal offers an unprecedented opportunity to address this
scientific question with training at an institution rich with expertise in child psychiatry and neuroscience research.
This K01 will chart the development of EC and related brain networks by leveraging a valuable captured infant
cohort undergoing repeated diffusion (dMRI) and resting state functional (rsfMRI) MRI scans and developmental
evaluations from birth to age 3 years. The applicant will add to the existing study a prospective observational
assessment of MMM, a standardized test of infant executive attention, and examine connectivity in a unique set
of white matter tracts. As the cohort is enriched for poverty, this study will examine novel links between maternal
perinatal psychosocial risk (poverty, depression, anxiety, stress) and later MMM and parenting sensitivity, and
the extent that that psychosocial risk indirectly influences EC via causally linked multiple mediators of MMM and
infant brain connectivity. Findings will elucidate MMM as a modifiable factor that may increase parent sensitivity
to enhance infant brain connectivity and EC to reduce psychopathology. [If MMM alters infant brain connectivity,
findings will underscore infancy as a critical time for targeted preventative intervention before EC deficits emerge
and lead to psychopathology; identify vulnerable infants who may benefit the most from intervention; and inform
the design of novel MMM interventions to enhance infant brain function in networks most sensitive to parenting
inputs and most related to EC.] This award will build upon the applicant's foundation in child development, school-
age executive attention, and structural MRI by providing [new and more advanced training in the assessment of
mother-infant interactions, the development of EC in infancy, a...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10318654
- **Project number:** 5K01MH122735-02
- **Recipient organization:** WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Rachel Emma Lean
- **Activity code:** K01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $165,361
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-12-15 → 2025-10-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10318654

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10318654, Investigating Links Between Dysfunctional Parenting and Infant Brain Connectivity on Development of Effortful Control (5K01MH122735-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10318654. Licensed CC0.

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