IV.I The neurobiology of early parenting: from basic science to interventions

TY - ABST

T1 - IV.I The neurobiology of early parenting:

T2 - 2021 International Child Health Group Virtual Conference

AU - Parsons, CE

AU - Young, Katherine S.

AU - Kringelbach, MLK

AU - Stein, AS

PY - 2022/3

Y1 - 2022/3

N2 - Parents’ early interactions with their infants have been shown to shape long-term child development. When interacting with an infant, adults intuitively enact a range of behaviours that support infant development, such as altering speech, establishing eye contact and mirroring infant expressions. Sensitive, contingent responsiveness from parent to infant involves the parental capacity to detect, monitor and respond to infant social signals.Our work has studied parental responses to infant signals using a range of methods, from magnetoencephagraphy and local field potential recordings, to observational studies of motor behavior and mother-infant interactions in depression. This work has provided converging evidence that infant communicative cues have a privileged status, and elicit highly selective responses in the human adult brain. We have demonstrated rapid differentiation of infant vocalisations from other sounds in both subcortical regions, such as the periaqueductal gray (PAG), and cortical regions, including the orbitofrontal (OFC), anterior cingulate and motor cortices. Before 100ms, we found a significant difference in activity recorded from the PAG in response to infant vocalizations compared with constructed control sounds and adult and animal affective vocalizations.1 We propose that this rapid activity in response to infant vocalizations may reflect the initiation of a state of heightened alertness to support parenting responses.Among cortical brain regions, we have reported several findings showing that the OFC rapidly responds to different infant communicative cues, such as faces and voices, which may support their efficient processing. OFC activity may thereby facilitate rapid orienting to infant cues, fundamental to intuitive parenting behaviour.2 These neuroimaging findings of rapid processing of infant cues are further supported by experimental evidence showing that adults can move more rapidly, and with greater accuracy and effort after hearing infant cries, compared to other environmental sounds.We have also shown that adults are highly attuned to subtle parameters communicating distress in infant cues, and that attunement can be enhanced via training. In adults with major depression, and no musical training, we found disrupted interpretation of infant vocal distress, but not in adults with music training.3 This suggests that prior acoustic training might reduce depression-related disruptions in sensitivity to infant cues. Furthermore, we found that interpretation of infant vocal distress could be enhanced through short-term, perceptual acoustic discrimination training. Overall, our work suggests that adults can rapidly detect and preferentially orient to infant cues, processes supported by both subcortical and cortical brain responses. Interventions that can enhance parents’ attention to infant cues, and the capacity to ‘read’, or interpret infant cues appropriately, may be useful in support of early caregiving. Such interventions may be of particular value in conditions where caregiving is disrupted, in for instance depression, where there are well-recognised biases in social and emotional processing.ReferencesParsons CE, Young KS, Joensson M, Brattico E, Hyam JA, Stein A, et al. Ready for action: a role for the human midbrain in responding to infant vocalizations. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2014;9(7):977–84.Parsons CE, Young KS, Stein A, Kringelbach ML. Intuitive parenting: understanding the neural mechanisms of parents’ adaptive responses to infants. Current Opinion in Psychology 2017;15:40–4.Young KS, Parsons CE, Stein A, Kringelbach ML. Interpreting infant vocal distress: the ameliorative effect of musical training in depression. Emotion 2012;12(6):1200–5.

AB - Parents’ early interactions with their infants have been shown to shape long-term child development. When interacting with an infant, adults intuitively enact a range of behaviours that support infant development, such as altering speech, establishing eye contact and mirroring infant expressions. Sensitive, contingent responsiveness from parent to infant involves the parental capacity to detect, monitor and respond to infant social signals.Our work has studied parental responses to infant signals using a range of methods, from magnetoencephagraphy and local field potential recordings, to observational studies of motor behavior and mother-infant interactions in depression. This work has provided converging evidence that infant communicative cues have a privileged status, and elicit highly selective responses in the human adult brain. We have demonstrated rapid differentiation of infant vocalisations from other sounds in both subcortical regions, such as the periaqueductal gray (PAG), and cortical regions, including the orbitofrontal (OFC), anterior cingulate and motor cortices. Before 100ms, we found a significant difference in activity recorded from the PAG in response to infant vocalizations compared with constructed control sounds and adult and animal affective vocalizations.1 We propose that this rapid activity in response to infant vocalizations may reflect the initiation of a state of heightened alertness to support parenting responses.Among cortical brain regions, we have reported several findings showing that the OFC rapidly responds to different infant communicative cues, such as faces and voices, which may support their efficient processing. OFC activity may thereby facilitate rapid orienting to infant cues, fundamental to intuitive parenting behaviour.2 These neuroimaging findings of rapid processing of infant cues are further supported by experimental evidence showing that adults can move more rapidly, and with greater accuracy and effort after hearing infant cries, compared to other environmental sounds.We have also shown that adults are highly attuned to subtle parameters communicating distress in infant cues, and that attunement can be enhanced via training. In adults with major depression, and no musical training, we found disrupted interpretation of infant vocal distress, but not in adults with music training.3 This suggests that prior acoustic training might reduce depression-related disruptions in sensitivity to infant cues. Furthermore, we found that interpretation of infant vocal distress could be enhanced through short-term, perceptual acoustic discrimination training. Overall, our work suggests that adults can rapidly detect and preferentially orient to infant cues, processes supported by both subcortical and cortical brain responses. Interventions that can enhance parents’ attention to infant cues, and the capacity to ‘read’, or interpret infant cues appropriately, may be useful in support of early caregiving. Such interventions may be of particular value in conditions where caregiving is disrupted, in for instance depression, where there are well-recognised biases in social and emotional processing.ReferencesParsons CE, Young KS, Joensson M, Brattico E, Hyam JA, Stein A, et al. Ready for action: a role for the human midbrain in responding to infant vocalizations. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2014;9(7):977–84.Parsons CE, Young KS, Stein A, Kringelbach ML. Intuitive parenting: understanding the neural mechanisms of parents’ adaptive responses to infants. Current Opinion in Psychology 2017;15:40–4.Young KS, Parsons CE, Stein A, Kringelbach ML. Interpreting infant vocal distress: the ameliorative effect of musical training in depression. Emotion 2012;12(6):1200–5.

U2 - 10.1136/archdischild-2022-ichgc.6

DO - 10.1136/archdischild-2022-ichgc.6

M3 - Conference abstract in journal

SN - 0003-9888

VL - 107

SP - A4-A4

JO - Archives of Disease in Childhood

JF - Archives of Disease in Childhood

IS - Suppl 1

Y2 - 12 November 2021 through 12 November 2021

ER -