ArticleDevelopmental cognitive neuroscience2019
Observed infant-parent attachment and brain morphology in middle childhood- A population-based study.
Article in Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Infant social interactions and brain development: A systematic review.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Pooled it
- Early Relational Health and its Impact on the Developing Brain: A Scoping Review.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2026Article
- Amygdala and hippocampal contributions to broad autism phenotype: Project Ice Storm.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Reconsidering the nature of threat in infancy: Integrating animal and human studies on neurobiological effects of infant stress.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2024Review
- Linking maternal disrupted interaction and infant limbic volumes: The role of infant cortisol output.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2023Article
- Levels of Physical Activity at Age 10 Years and Brain Morphology Changes From Ages 10 to 14 Years.JAMA network open · 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- Negative versus withdrawn maternal behavior: Differential associations with infant gray and white matter during the first 2 years of life.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
- Neurobiology of Disorganized Attachment: A Review of Primary Studies on Human Beings.Neuroscience insights · 2023Review
- Disorganized attachment behaviors in infancy as predictors of brain morphology and peer rejection in late childhood.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
- Normative range parenting and the developing brain: A scoping review and recommendations for future research.The European journal of neuroscience · 2022Article
- Comorbid depression and anxiety: Integration of insights from attachment theory and cognitive neuroscience, and their implications for research and treatment.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
- An Exploratory Study on Resting-State Functional Connectivity in Individuals with Disorganized Attachment: Evidence for Key Regions in Amygdala and Hippocampus.Brain sciences · 2021Article
- Developmental and attachment-based perspectives on dissociation: beyond the effects of maltreatment.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2020Review
- Conceptual Analysis: A Social Neuroscience Approach to Interpersonal Interaction in the Context of Disruption and Disorganization of Attachment (NAMDA).Frontiers in psychiatry · 2020Review
- Association Between Cognitive Function and Early Life Experiences in Patients with Alcohol Use Disorder.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Poor quality of the early infant-parent bond predicts later child problems. Infant-parent attachment has been suggested to influence brain development, but this association has hardly been examined. In adults, larger amygdala volumes have been described in relation to early attachment disorganization; neuroimaging studies of attachment in children, however, are lacking. We examined the association between infant-parent attachment and brain morphology in 551 children from a population-based cohort in the Netherlands. Infant-parent attachment was observed with the Strange-Situation Procedure at age 14 months and different brain measures were collected with magnetic resonance imaging at mean age 10 years. Children with disorganized infant attachment had larger hippocampal volumes than those with organized attachment patterns. This finding was robust to the adjustment for confounders and consistent across hemispheres. The association was not explained by cognitive or emotional and behavioral problems. Disorganized attachment did not predict any other difference in brain morphology. Moreover, children with insecure organized infant attachment patterns did not differ from those who were securely attached in any brain outcome. Causality cannot be inferred, but our findings in this large population-based study provide novel evidence for a long-term association between the quality of infant-parent attachment and specific brain differences in childhood.
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