In order to explore the relationship between parent-child attachment, negative emotion, emotional coping style, and self-injury behavior, 662 junior high school students in four junior middle schools in China's Yunnan Province were investigated using a parentchild attachment questionnaire, adolescent negative emotion questionnaire, emotional coping style scale, and adolescent self-injury behavior scale. As a result, two mediate models were created to explain how parent-child attachment affects self-injury behavior. Negative emotion and emotional coping style play serial mediating roles in motherchild and father-child attachment models, respectively. The results show that negative emotion mediates between self-injury behavior and both father-child and motherchild attachment, while emotional coping style only functions between father-child attachment and self-injury behavior. By means of bootstrap analysis, negative emotion and emotional coping style have serial mediating roles concerning the impact of parent-child attachment on self-injury behavior. By comparison, the father-child and mother-child attachment have different mediating models: the former relies on emotional coping style, while the latter is associated with emotional experiences. This implies that parent-child attachment has different mechanisms in triggering self-injury behavior, which is in line with the hypothesis of attachment specificity.

Background Attachment theory demonstrates that early attachment experience shapes internal working models with mental representations of self and close relationships, which affects personality traits and interpersonal relationships in adulthood. Although research has focused on brain structural and functional underpinnings to disentangle attachment styles in healthy individuals, little is known about the spontaneous brain activity associated with self-reported attachment anxiety and avoidance during the resting state. Methods One hundred and nineteen individuals participated in the study, completing the Experience in Close Relationship scale immediately after an 8-min fMRI scanning. We used the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) signal of the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation and resting-state functional connectivity to identify attachment-related regions and networks. Results Consequently, attachment anxiety is closely associated with the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations in the right posterior cingulate cortex, over-estimating emotional intensity and exaggerating outcomes. Moreover, the functional connectivity between the posterior cingulate cortex and fusiform gyrus increases detection ability for potential threat or separation information, facilitating behavior motivation. The attachment avoidance is positively correlated with the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation in the bilateral lingual gyrus and right postcentral and negatively correlated with the bilateral orbital frontal cortex and inferior temporal gyrus. Functional connection with attachment avoidance contains critical nodes in the medial temporal lobe memory system, frontal-parietal network, social cognition, and default mode network necessary to deactivate the attachment system and inhibit attachment-related behavior. Conclusion and implications These findings clarify the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation and resting-state functional connectivity neural signature of attachment style, associated with attachment strategies in attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance individuals. These findings may improve our understanding of the pathophysiology of the attachment-related disorder.

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