Neural Basis of Maternal Communication and Emotional Expression Processing during Infant Preverbal Stage

Abstract

During the first year of life, exchanges and communication between a mother and her infant are exclusively preverbal and are based on the mother's ability to understand her infant's needs and feelings (i.e., empathy) and on imitation of the infant's facial expressions; this promotes a social dialog that influences the development of the infant self. Sixteen mothers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while observing and imitating faces of their own child and those of someone else's child. We found that the mirror neuron system, the insula and amygdala were more active during emotional expressions, that this circuit is engaged to a greater extent when interacting with one's own child, and that it is correlated with maternal reflective function (a measure of empathy). We also found, by comparing single emotions with each other, that joy expressions evoked a response mainly in right limbic and paralimbic areas; by contrast, ambiguous expressions elicited a response in left high order cognitive and motor areas, which might reflect cognitive effort.

Inhaled oxytocin increases positive social behaviors in newborn macaques

“…For example, human infants actively participate in face-to-face caregiver-infant interactions; failure to engage with caregivers in this way can disrupt the development of healthy emotion regulation and socioemotional skills (23)(24)(25). In both caregivers and neonates, complex cortical and limbic brain networks are prepared to sustain such exchanges (26)(27)(28), and several hormones and neuromodulators regulate the affective components of face-to-face caregiver-infant interactions (29)(30)(31)(32). However, to our knowledge, studies investigating the role of infants' oxytocin levels in these early intersubjective exchanges have not been carried out.…”

The dual essence of pleasure: Willing, imagining and planning the Saussurean sublime and beautiful in surviving daunting nature and culture

“…Recent neuroimaging findings reveal that presumably low-arousal or negative emotions can actually empower us in several different ways: (1) we become active, organized and focused in terms of thinking and paying attention (Baas et al 2012); (2) we turn out to be resourceful and intelligent in situations that demand our favours to transform someone else's misery and distress into joy and happiness, peace and harmony. It is discovered that mothers are quite capable of devising strategies in dealing with their, and other, babies' ambiguous facial expressions (Lenzi et al 2009); (3) we may acquire heightened appreciation of abstract art and emotional attachment to art forms that at first appeared unknown or unfamiliar (Eskine et al 2012;Vessel et al 2013;Starr 2013). These findings invite us to devise a model of interpreting the arts that, on the one hand, will serve to revise the essentialist view of emotions, and on 1 Th is section is a slightly modifi ed part of an already published article (cf.…”

“…The kind of pleasure, satisfaction and reward we gain from processing the so-called low-or negative-valence emotions is not so direct and transparent as that received from high-or positive-valence ones on first encountering something. The reward is the result of detail-oriented, categorical and systematic analyses that involve high-order cognitive and motor areas in our brain (Lenzi et al 2009;Baas et al 2012Baas et al : 1005Baas et al -1006. Such analyses may enable us to detect meaningful patterns or to become outspoken in justifying certain values we adhere to (Baas et al 2012(Baas et al : 1012.…”

“…The system as a whole may facilitate our foreseeing of possibilities or potential developments before we decide to take action. At the starting point of observing any kind of situation in nature and culture, patterns of our neural circuits of perceiving and imagining are not very different; rather, they are almost blended and they collaborate to create perspectives for further applications (O'Connor, Aardema 2005;Gallagher 2006;Kaag 2009;Lenzi et al 2009). After taking action to explore a situation, we become more or less removed from our initial position.…”

“…We cannot ignore the fact that ambiguities or foreboding signs -particularly when detected via seeing and hearing -actually instigate a rigorous play drive, cognitive or high-level processing in our brain (Panksepp 1998(Panksepp : 289-290, 2012Lenzi et al 2009). Instead of simply inhibiting feelings of fear and anxiety, our secondary and tertiary cortices always devise changing and intriguing strategies so that we can cope with uncertainties and unpredictability (Donald 2001).…”