ArticleFrontiers in psychology2017
Attachment Security in Infancy: A Preliminary Study of Prospective Links to Brain Morphometry in Late Childhood.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 59 citations in OpenAlex.
- Infant social interactions and brain development: A systematic review.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Pooled it
- Timing and duration of early-childhood shared reading and resilience, behavior problems, and reading habits.Pediatric research · 2026Article
- Article
- Early Relational Health and its Impact on the Developing Brain: A Scoping Review.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2026Article
- A developmental framework of interpersonal neural synchrony.Developmental review : DR · 2025Article
- Effectiveness of the circle of security parenting program in reducing children's behavioral challenges and parental stress, anxiety, and depression in a Saudi Arabian sample.BMC public health · 2025Article
- The neurobiological effects of childhood maltreatment on brain structure, function, and attachment.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2025Review
- Co-creating a conceptual model of Indigenous relational wellbeing in early childhood: Planting seeds of connectedness.Infant mental health journal · 2025Article
- Attachment and emotional regulation: examining the role of prefrontal cortex functions, executive functions, and mindfulness in their relationship.Cognitive processing · 2023Article
- Negative versus withdrawn maternal behavior: Differential associations with infant gray and white matter during the first 2 years of life.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
- Disorganized attachment behaviors in infancy as predictors of brain morphology and peer rejection in late childhood.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
- Effectiveness of Care for Child Development Program on the Sensitivity and Responsiveness Skills of Mothers.Iranian journal of child neurology · 2022Article
- Early Attachment and the Development of Social Communication: A Neuropsychological Approach.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Review
- Dignity neuroscience: universal rights are rooted in human brain science.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2021Review
- Structural atrophy of the right superior frontal gyrus in adolescents with severe irritability.Human brain mapping · 2021Article
- Speech-Driven Spectrotemporal Receptive Fields Beyond the Auditory Cortex.Hearing research · 2021Article
- Neurobiological Implications of Parent-Child Emotional Availability: A Review.Brain sciences · 2021Review
- Decomposing complex links between the childhood environment and brain structure in school-aged youth.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2021Article
- Amplitude of Low-Frequency Fluctuation in Multiple Frequency Bands in Tension-Type Headache Patients: A Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Article
- Developmental and attachment-based perspectives on dissociation: beyond the effects of maltreatment.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A large body of longitudinal research provides compelling evidence for the critical role of early attachment relationships in children's social, emotional, and cognitive development. It is expected that parent-child attachment relationships may also impact children's brain development, however, studies linking normative caregiving experiences and brain structure are scarce. To our knowledge, no study has yet examined the associations between the quality of parent-infant attachment relationships and brain morphology during childhood. The aim of this preliminary study was to investigate the prospective links between mother-infant attachment security and whole-brain gray matter (GM) volume and thickness in late childhood. Attachment security toward the mother was assessed in 33 children when they were 15 months old. These children were then invited to undergo structural magnetic resonance imaging at 10-11 years of age. Results indicated that children more securely attached to their mother in infancy had larger GM volumes in the superior temporal sulcus and gyrus, temporo-parietal junction, and precentral gyrus in late childhood. No associations between attachment security and cortical thickness were found. If replicated, these results would suggest that a secure attachment relationship and its main features (e.g., adequate dyadic emotion regulation, competent exploration) may influence GM volume in brain regions involved in social, cognitive, and emotional functioning through experience-dependent processes.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.