Child brain exhibits a multi-rhythmic response to attachment cues

Abstract

Research on the human parental brain implicated brain networks involved in simulation, mentalization and emotion processing and indicated that stimuli of own parent–child interaction elicit greater integration among networks supporting attachment. Here, we examined children’s neural activation while viewing own parent–child interactions and asked whether similar networks activate when children are exposed to attachment stimuli. Sixty-five 11-year-old children underwent magnetoencephalography (MEG) while observing own vs unfamiliar mother-child interaction. Own mother–child interactions elicited a greater neural response across distributed brain areas including alpha suppression in posterior regions, theta enhancement in the fusiform gyrus and beta- and gamma-band oscillations across a wide cluster in the right temporal cortex, comprising the superior temporal sulcus/superior temporal gyrus and insula. Theta and gamma activations were associated with the degree of mother–child social synchrony in the home ecology. Findings from this exploratory study are the first to show activations in children that are similar to previous findings in parents and comparable associations between social synchrony and gamma oscillations in temporal regions. Results indicate that attachment stimuli elicit a strong neural response in children that spreads across a wide range of oscillations, underscoring the considerable neural resources allocated to this fundamental, survival-related cue.

What is resilience: an affiliative neuroscience approach

“…We found that parental brain activations in infancy predicted the child's emotion regulation, stress management, and symptom formation across the first seven years of life 109‐111 . In parallel, sensitive and synchronous parenting longitudinally shaped the child's affiliative brain in adolescence 112,113 . Finally, humans' large associative cortex enables humans to find meaning through love to abstract ideas, such as homeland or God, and extend affiliations to fellow‐humans, pets, or the Earth's flora and fauna, all supported by the same network 85 .…”

“…Neural oscillations play an important role in predictive coding: alpha oscillations participate in building predictions, beta oscillations in assessing the accuracy of these predictions, and gamma oscillations in prediction error, the constant pitting of the brain's predictions with incoming information 196,197 . Synchronous experiences provide a template for polyrhythmic coherence that enables multisensory representation of the body in the world 197 and involves the integration of alpha, beta and gamma rhythms in formation of social predictions during real‐life events 112 .…”

Mother Brain is Wired for Social Moments

“…In parallel, the infant's emerging awareness of own body and construction of primitive representations of self are initiated by maternal-infant interactions (Atzil et al, 2018;Fotopoulou and Tsakiris, 2017). Indeed, interoceptive activations in the parental brain shaped children's later social competencies and insular activation in the child's brain to attachment cues (Pratt et al, 2019(Pratt et al, , 2018.…”

Synchronous Caregiving from Birth to Adulthood Tunes Humans’ Social Brain

“…The system shows construct and predictive validity, test-retest reliability, and sensitivity to cultural contexts, interacting partner, and multiple psychopathological conditions [for a review see 50 ]. Consistent with prior research, we used the parent-child synchrony CIB construct; 46,47,[51][52][53] , computed by averaging several CIB codes.…”