![]() How this apparent neural and physiological reorganization and adaptation is impacted by a host of adversities including depression, addiction, and anxiety in adults who are parents is also a topic of ongoing study in our research group using both functional brain imaging and neurophysiology methods while mothers respond to infant faces and infant cries. Finally, preclinical models of parenting suggest that early parenting experiences set response thresholds in key neural and perhaps genetic transcriptional systems such that individual differences in parenting are transmitted inter-generationally ( Rutherford et al., 2011). Findings such as these are being replicated in ours and others’ laboratories in which it also appears that with increasing exposure to the infant, there is consolidation of specific neural circuits around response to salient infant cues.Īdditional lines of work highlighting the neurophysiological changes accompanying parenting point to heightened perceptual sensitivity to infant cues (auditory or visual) as measured by electrophysiological studies as well as alterations in neurophysiological markers of emotion regulation in mothers compared to non-mothers ( Rutherford et al., in press). Further, changes in peripheral levels of OT following mother–child play correlated with brain activation in hypothalamic–pituitary regions when mothers view photographs of their own infant compared to an unknown infant, and this OT response was stronger in securely attached mothers compared to insecurely attached mothers. Specifically, securely attached mothers show heightened activity in reward regions while insecurely attached mothers show a stronger response in the right insula, an area associated with anticipated loss. Further, individual differences in maternal attachment (based on mother’s own parenting) predicted divergence in regions of brain activity in response to viewing infant faces. ![]() For example, Strathearn and colleagues (Strathearn, Fonagy, Amico, & Montague, 2009) have shown that mothers recruited regions of the brain that are regulated by dopamine (a neurotransmitter key to reward and motivation regulation) when viewing photographs of their own smiling infants but did not do so when viewing unfamiliar infants. Central to the transition to parenthood (although mothers are, to date, more often studied than fathers) are significant changes in the function of key brain regions involved in reward and motivation, as well as stress and emotion regulation and the production of the oxytocin (OT), a neuropeptide involved in the regulation of uterine contractions, milk release, and affiliative behavior. These include a host of structural and neurochemical changes indicating plasticity at the neural regions, synaptic, and transcriptional regulation levels of control ( Rutherford, Williams, Moy, Mayes, & Johns, 2011 Rutherford, Potenza, & Mayes, 2012a) suggesting the dynamic nature of neural systems in adulthood, especially under the influence of attachment related experiences. Specifically, what are the neural and psychological changes that occur (and must occur) as both women and men assume the care of their infant? What are (the sources of individual variation in that psychological and neuropsychological transition? How can prevention and intervention efforts impact that adult transition before or in the presence of a new infant when needed?Ĭonverging studies from the clinical and preclinical worlds are shedding light on how there are significant neurobiological and neurophysiological changes subserving the transition to parenthood. How adults transition into parenthood has become a key question and area of focus for many developmentalists. The parents’ development is a reflection of their own early experiences as well as their neurobiology, and parental development at all levels of analysis is facilitated by the act of caring for another-the adult side of the “serve and return” interactions so critical for infant and child development. Within the parent–child dyad however, the adult as a parent is also developing. ![]() This accumulated work has shown that early relationships and parental care play a critical role on a child’s developing brain architecture, social and cognitive development, and life-long health outcomes ( Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2010 National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2007 Shonkoff, Boyce, & McEwen, 2009 ). For decades, clinicians and developmental scholars have focused on how individual differences in parental care impact infant and child development.
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