ArticleNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2019
Neurobiology of maternal regulation of infant fear: the role of mesolimbic dopamine and its disruption by maltreatment.
Article in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers.
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Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 54 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Developmental Shifts in Amygdala Function.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- The effects of parental presence on amygdala and mPFC activation during fear conditioning: An exploratory study.Developmental science · 2024Article
- The lateral habenula integrates age and experience to promote social transitions in developing rats.Cell reports · 2024Article
- The lateral habenula integrates age and experience to promote social transitions in developing rats.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Depression in adolescence and young adulthood: the difficulty to integrate motivational/emotional systems.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Review
- A perspective-based analysis of attachment from prenatal period to second year postnatal life.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Review
- Leveraging the developmental neuroscience of caregiving to promote resilience among youth exposed to adversity.Development and psychopathology · 2023Article
- Neural Circuit Transitions Supporting Developmentally Specific Social Behavior.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Review
- Dynamic developmental changes in neurotransmitters supporting infant attachment learning.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- Amygdala circuit transitions supporting developmentally-appropriate social behavior.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2023Review
- Somatovisceral influences on emotional development.Emotion review : journal of the International Society for Research on Emotion · 2023Article
- The Added Value of Crosstalk Between Developmental Circuit Neuroscience and Clinical Practice to Inform the Treatment of Adolescent Anxiety.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2023Review
- Infant pain vs. pain with parental suppression: Immediate and enduring impact on brain, pain and affect.PloS one · 2023Article
- From circuits to behavior: Amygdala dysfunction in fragile X syndrome.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2023Review
- The integrative process promoted by EMDR in dissociative disorders: neurobiological mechanisms, psychometric tools, and intervention efficacy on the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Review
- Neurodevelopmental origins of substance use disorders: Evidence from animal models of early-life adversity and addiction.The European journal of neuroscience · 2022Review
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Authors and funding
15 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Child development research highlights caregiver regulation of infant physiology and behavior as a key feature of early life attachment, although mechanisms for maternal control of infant neural circuits remain elusive. Here we explored the neurobiology of maternal regulation of infant fear using neural network and molecular levels of analysis in a rodent model. Previous research has shown maternal suppression of amygdala-dependent fear learning during a sensitive period. Here we characterize changes in neural networks engaged during maternal regulation and the transition to infant self-regulation. Metabolic mapping of 2-deoxyglucose uptake during odor-shock conditioning in postnatal day (PN)14 rat pups showed that maternal presence blocked fear learning, disengaged mesolimbic circuitry, basolateral amygdala (BLA), and plasticity-related AMPA receptor subunit trafficking. At PN18, when maternal presence only socially buffers threat learning (similar to social modulation in adults), maternal presence failed to disengage the mesolimbic dopaminergic system, and failed to disengage both the BLA and plasticity-related AMPA receptor subunit trafficking. Further, maternal presence failed to block threat learning at PN14 pups following abuse, and mesolimbic dopamine engagement and AMPA were not significantly altered by maternal presence-analogous to compromised maternal regulation of children in abusive relationships. Our results highlight three key features of maternal regulation: (1) maternal presence blocks fear learning and amygdala plasticity through age-dependent suppression of amygdala AMPA receptor subunit trafficking, (2) maternal presence suppresses engagement of brain regions within the mesolimbic dopamine circuit, and (3) early-life abuse compromises network and molecular biomarkers of maternal regulation, suggesting reduced social scaffolding of the brain.
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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.