The Neuro-Environmental Loop of Plasticity: A Cross-Species Analysis of Parental Effects on Emotion Circuitry Development Following Typical and Adverse Caregiving

Abstract

Early experiences critically shape the structure and function of the brain. Perturbations in typical/species-expected early experiences are known to have profound neural effects, especially in regions important for emotional responding. Parental care is one species-expected stimulus that plays a fundamental role in the development of emotion neurocircuitry. Emerging evidence across species suggests that phasic variation in parental presence during the sensitive period of childhood affects the recruitment of emotional networks on a moment-to-moment basis. In addition, it appears that increasing independence from caregivers cues the termination of the sensitive period for environmental input into emotion network development. In this review, we examine how early parental care, the central nervous system, and behavior come together to form a 'neuroenvironmental loop,' contributing to the formation of stable emotion regulation circuits. To achieve this end, we focus on the interaction of parental care and the developing amygdala-medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) network-that is at the core of human emotional functioning. Using this model, we discuss how individual or group variations in parental independence, across chronic and brief timescales, might contribute to neural and emotional phenotypes that have implications for long-term mental health.

The Stress Acceleration Hypothesis: effects of early-life adversity on emotion circuits and behavior

“…Specifically, it may be adaptive to move from a state of parent-regulation to self-regulation earlier in environments characterized by absent or inconsistent parental care. Put another way, the quantity and quality of parental care may act as an environmental signal for the pace of offspring maturation within circumscribed emotion systems [8, 41]. …”

“…Also, a prolonged period of cortical development is associated with greater general intelligence [43]. In terms of emotion circuitry, we have recently suggested that a period of immaturity is required so that parent-assisted emotion regulation can help mold the circuitry into its stable adult state [41]. In this hypothesis, early termination of the immature period would shift the circuit into a stable state of function before it had acquired the characteristics needed for adequate self-regulatory control.…”

Impact of Stress on the Brain: Pathology, Treatment and Prevention

“…The next section examines developmental psychopathology, with an initial chapter by Boyce focusing on biology-environment interactions in disease pathogenesis (Boyce, 2016). Nim Tottenham's group has spent years examining the effects of developmental studies of stress on the brain, in particular through an amazing series of studies with children who were raised in situations of social neglect (Callaghan and Tottenham, 2016). Johanna Bick and Charles Nelson then provide further exploration of these topics and mechanisms by examining the developmental consequences of toxic stress exposure (Bick and Nelson, 2016).…”

Developmental delay in early childhood is associated with visual-constructive skills at school age in a Brazilian cohort

“…It is hypothesized that these limitations in an extremely important period for child development, combined with limited access to materials and suitable conditions for the development of the child, could not be compensated for up to school age for this study's sample. It has been pointed out also the need to deepen the study of environmental variables (Lipina & Segretin, 2015), as other factors such as language environment at home (Melvin et al, 2016), absence of a parent (McLanahan et al 2013), or stress as a result of living in disadvantaged environments (Callaghan & Tottenham, 2016;Evans & Fuller-Rowell, 2013;Piccolo et al, 2016) may have short-and long-term effects in child development. One can ask: if all children are from low SES environments, why do some of them have presented deficits but some of them have not?…”