Adult attachment predicts maternal brain and oxytocin response to infant cues

By Lane Strathearn, Peter Fonagy, J. Amico, P. R. Montague. Neuropsychopharmacology, 2009

729 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Infant cues, such as smiling or crying facial expressions, are powerful motivators of human maternal behavior, activating dopamine-associated brain reward circuits. Oxytocin, a neurohormone of attachment, promotes maternal care in animals, although its role in human maternal behavior is unclear. We examined 30 first-time new mothers to test whether differences in attachment, based on the Adult Attachment Interview, were related to brain reward and peripheral oxytocin response to infant cues. On viewing their own infant's smiling and crying faces during functional MRI scanning, mothers with secure attachment showed greater activation of brain reward regions, including the ventral striatum, and the oxytocin-associated hypothalamus/pituitary region. Peripheral oxytocin response to infant contact at 7 months was also significantly higher in secure mothers, and was positively correlated with brain activation in both regions. Insecure/dismissing mothers showed greater insular activation in response to their own infant's sad faces. These results suggest that individual differences in maternal attachment may be linked with development of the dopaminergic and oxytocinergic neuroendocrine systems.

Subfields: Pharmacy, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e36a61cb32869079e7c01358ceb4e29bb3ada1c8

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Citations in the corpus

The brain basis of emotion: A meta-analytic review (2012, positive): “…support a constructionist framework that includes hormone levels – in addition to maternal brain responses in the cingulate, striatum, and hypothalamus when shown baby pictures, some of which responses vary with individual differences in oxytocin and concurrent attachment (Strathearn et al. 2009).”
Oxytocin and social affiliation in humans. (2012, background): “Strathearn et al. (2009) scanned secure and insecure mothers while viewing their own infant's happy and sad expressions .”
Parental Reflective Functioning: Theory, Research, and Clinical Applications (2017, methodology): “Strathearn and colleagues (Strathearn et al. 2008; Strathearn et al. 2009), for instance, used”
The Neurobiology of Human Attachments. (2017, positive): “Human studies indicate tighter connections between OT and DA in response to bonding-related cues as mediated by social synchrony; for instance, coactivation of OT- and DA-rich brain areas in response to infant stimuli [47,53], heightened VTA response to romantic partner following OT administration [”
Natural variations in maternal and paternal care are associated with systematic changes in oxytocin following parent-infant contact. (2010, result): “…has shown parallel increases in maternal plasma OTand in the mother’s fMRI BOLD response to own infant stimuli in brain areas rich in OT receptors (Strathearn et al., 2009) and, although this design also differs from the present study, the study suggests a parallel in the response of central and…”
The Social Salience Hypothesis of Oxytocin. (2016, neutral): “It has been shown that mothers with secure attachment have elevated OT levels compared to mothers with insecure/dismissing style in response to their infants at 7 months (79), and that mother-infant affect synchrony moderates the degree of the correlation between the mother and the infant salivary O”