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Journal ArticleDOI

Breastfeeding, brain activation to own infant cry, and maternal sensitivity

TL;DR: Results suggest links between breastfeeding and greater response to infant cues in brain regions implicated in maternal-infant bonding and empathy during the early postpartum may facilitate greater maternal sensitivity as infants enter their social world.
Abstract: Background: Research points to the importance of breastfeeding for promoting close mother–infant contact and social-emotional development. Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have identified brain regions related to maternal behaviors. However, little research has addressed the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the relationship between breastfeeding and maternal behavior in human mothers. We investigated the associations between breastfeeding, maternal brain response to own infant stimuli, and maternal sensitivity in the early postpartum. Methods: Seventeen biological mothers of healthy infants participated in two matched groups according to feeding method – exclusive breastfeeding and exclusive formula-feeding at 2–4 weeks postpartum. fMRI scanning was conducted in the first postpartum month to examine maternal brain activation in response to her own baby’s cry versus control baby-cry. Dyadic interactions between mothers and infants at 3–4 months postpartum were videotaped in the home and blindly coded for maternal sensitivity. Results: In the first postpartum month, breastfeeding mothers showed greater activations in the superior frontal gyrus, insula, precuneus, striatum, and amygdala while listening to their own baby-cry as compared to formula-feeding mothers. For both breastfeeding and formulafeeding mothers, greater activations in the right superior frontal gyrus and amygdala were associated with higher maternal sensitivity at 3–4 months postpartum. Conclusions: Results suggest links between breastfeeding and greater response to infant cues in brain regions implicated in maternal– infant bonding and empathy during the early postpartum. Such brain activations may facilitate greater maternal sensitivity as infants enter their social world. Keywords: Breastfeeding, infancy, maternal sensitivity, mother–infant interaction, neuroimaging. Abbreviations: ANOVA: analysis of variance; BOLD: blood-oxygen-level-dependent; CIB: Coding Interactive Behavior; fMRI: functional magnetic resonance imaging; GLM: general linear model; MPOA: medial preoptic area; OLS: ordinary least squares.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A meta-analytic summary of the neuroimaging literature on human emotion finds little evidence that discrete emotion categories can be consistently and specifically localized to distinct brain regions, and finds evidence that is consistent with a psychological constructionist approach to the mind.
Abstract: Researchers have wondered how the brain creates emotions since the early days of psychological science. With a surge of studies in affective neuroscience in recent decades, scientists are poised to answer this question. In this target article, we present a meta-analytic summary of the neuroimaging literature on human emotion. We compare the locationist approach (i.e., the hypothesis that discrete emotion categories consistently and specifically correspond to distinct brain regions) with the psychological constructionist approach (i.e., the hypothesis that discrete emotion categories are constructed of more general brain networks not specific to those categories) to better understand the brain basis of emotion. We review both locationist and psychological constructionist hypotheses of brain-emotion correspondence and report meta-analytic findings bearing on these hypotheses. Overall, we found little evidence that discrete emotion categories can be consistently and specifically localized to distinct brain regions. Instead, we found evidence that is consistent with a psychological constructionist approach to the mind: A set of interacting brain regions commonly involved in basic psychological operations of both an emotional and non-emotional nature are active during emotion experience and perception across a range of discrete emotion categories.

1,702 citations


Cites background from "Breastfeeding, brain activation to ..."

  • ...Furthermore, regardless of delivery type, mothers known to show higher oxytocin during breastfeeding (Nissen et al. 1996), also have higher brain responses to their own baby’s crying than do formula-feeding mothers, in the insula, striatum, amygdala, and superior frontal gyrus (Kim et al. 2011)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Evidence from neuroimaging, psychophysiological studies, and related fields are reviewed to argue for the development of a second-person neuroscience, which will help neuroscience to really “go social” and may also be relevant for the understanding of psychiatric disorders construed as disorders of social cognition.
Abstract: In spite of the remarkable progress made in the burgeoning field of social neuroscience, the neural mechanisms that underlie social encounters are only beginning to be studied and could-paradoxically-be seen as representing the "dark matter" of social neuroscience. Recent conceptual and empirical developments consistently indicate the need for investigations that allow the study of real-time social encounters in a truly interactive manner. This suggestion is based on the premise that social cognition is fundamentally different when we are in interaction with others rather than merely observing them. In this article, we outline the theoretical conception of a second-person approach to other minds and review evidence from neuroimaging, psychophysiological studies, and related fields to argue for the development of a second-person neuroscience, which will help neuroscience to really "go social"; this may also be relevant for our understanding of psychiatric disorders construed as disorders of social cognition.

1,022 citations


Cites background from "Breastfeeding, brain activation to ..."

  • ...& Glimcher, P. W. (2004) Activity in posterior parietal cortex is correlated with the relative subjective desirability of action....

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  • ...Di Paolo, E. A., Rohde, M. & Iizuka, H. (2008) Sensitivity to social contingency or...

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  • ...& Di Paolo, E. A. (2008) Stability of coordination requires mutuality of...

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  • ...Haggard, P. (2008) Human volition: Towards a neuroscience of will....

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  • ...” Persuasively, Gallotti emphasizes that the we-mode may constitute an irreducible mode of cognition vis-à-vis cognitive states in the I-mode. As Searle (1990) and others have shown, weintentions (e.g., “we are playing this game together”) cannot be analyzed in terms of or reduced to a sum of the individual intentions of the agents and that the wemode has considerable explanatory power. We can completely agree with this claim and have actually said nothing to undermine it. In addition to Gallotti’s claim, our account can actually tell a persuasive story about the origin of our we-intentions. Surely, we-intentions cannot simply precede social interaction. Neither should we take weintentions as brute, inexplicable facts. The only viable explanation seems to be that joint engagement and activities may lead to intentions in the we-mode. That is, the wemode presupposes the features emphasized in our approach and is thus no replacement for it. Even if the we-mode was irreducible to two I-modes, it would still assume that within an interaction, the actions of an agent can be causally explained in terms of representations that reside in that agent alone. In this sense, it would be clearly spectatorial and would downplay sensorimotor accounts (see, e.g., Lewis & Stack). Rather than downgrading ideas of collective intentionality, our approach can lead towards an answer to the question of how collective intentions arise from interaction dynamics and emotional engagement. In the same vein as Gallotti, commentators Lewis & Stack suggest that “knowledge of ‘you’” emerges from a previously shared context in which infant and adult form a (proto-) conversational unit that can be described as a very early first-person plural experience. As mentioned before, we suggest that it may be the other way around. Implicitly, Lewis & Stack acknowledge this when they contend that these shared activities are “largely stagemanaged by the adult.” Without needing to discuss whether it is actually genuinely participatory and jointly “managed,” it is clear that this implies that someone takes the initiative by emotionally engaging with the other in a communication loop that is characterized by reciprocity, and is supported by social affordances. Furthermore, they ask what may fill the “spectatorial gap.” Even from a spectatorial perspective, one valid suggestion might be that it is essentially a form of embodied sensorimotor know-how (McGeer 2001; Schlicht, forthcoming). This is actually what Lewis & Stack themselves seem to suggest. The earliest forms of awareness are arguably “sensorimotor and take place within practical activities.” One important characteristic of know-how (with respect to some ability) is that its development goes hand in hand with the ability to recognize the execution of this ability in someone else’s actions. Knowing how to swim enables one to recognize when someone else executes her swimming ability successfully (McGeer 2001). Similarly, the suggestion would be that we develop social know-how in the context of scenes of mutual engagement and interaction. But, as mentioned before, the crucial difference in our approach is that this development of social know-how is not a faculty we develop to “bridge a gap.” Rather, it constitutes our primary way of experiencing others. This is in line with Bruner’s (1964) suggestion that the developmentally primary form of representation is “enactive” in the sense that it is embodied and inextricably tied to (inter-) action....

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Journal ArticleDOI
Ruth Feldman1
TL;DR: It is suggested that micro-level social behaviors in the gaze, vocal, affective, and touch modalities are dynamically integrated with online physiological processes and hormonal response to create dyad-specific affiliations.

549 citations


Cites background from "Breastfeeding, brain activation to ..."

  • ...Greater amygdala activations were correlated with higher observed maternal sensitivity, suggesting that the increase in brain activations triggered by breastfeeding may prepare for the expression of coordinated parenting at the stage when infants enter the social world (Kim et al., 2011)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Behavioral research from social psychology with recent research in neurosciences is integrated to provide coherence to the extant and future research on embodied cognition to advance the application of theories of embodied cognition in the study of facial expression of emotion.
Abstract: Recent application of theories of embodied or grounded cognition to the recognition and interpretation of facial expression of emotion has led to an explosion of research in psychology and the neurosciences. However, despite the accelerating number of reported findings, it remains unclear how the many component processes of emotion and their neural mechanisms actually support embodied simulation. Equally unclear is what triggers the use of embodied simulation versus perceptual or conceptual strategies in determining meaning. The present article integrates behavioral research from social psychology with recent research in neurosciences in order to provide coherence to the extant and future research on this topic. The roles of several of the brain's reward systems, and the amygdala, somatosensory cortices, and motor centers are examined. These are then linked to behavioral and brain research on facial mimicry and eye gaze. Articulation of the mediators and moderators of facial mimicry and gaze are particularly useful in guiding interpretation of relevant findings from neurosciences. Finally, a model of the processing of the smile, the most complex of the facial expressions, is presented as a means to illustrate how to advance the application of theories of embodied cognition in the study of facial expression of emotion.

498 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A framework that brings together prenatal, social/contextual, and neurobiological mechanisms to explain the intergenerational transmission of self-regulation is introduced, a framework that incorporates potential transactional processes between generations.
Abstract: This review examines mechanisms contributing to the intergenerational transmission of self-regulation. To provide an integrated account of how self-regulation is transmitted across generations, we draw from over 75 years of accumulated evidence, spanning case studies to experimental approaches, in literatures covering developmental, social, and clinical psychology, and criminology, physiology, genetics, and human and animal neuroscience (among others). First, we present a taxonomy of what self-regulation is and then examine how it develops— overviews that guide the main foci of the review. Next, studies supporting an association between parent and child self-regulation are reviewed. Subsequently, literature that considers potential social mechanisms of transmission, specifically parenting behavior, interparental (i.e., marital) relationship behaviors, and broader rearing influences (e.g., household chaos) is considered. Finally, evidence that prenatal programming may be the starting point of the intergenerational transmission of self-regulation is covered, along with key findings from the behavioral and molecular genetics literatures. To integrate these literatures, we introduce the self-regulation intergenerational transmission model, a framework that brings together prenatal, social/contextual, and neurobiological mechanisms (spanning endocrine, neural, and genetic levels, including gene-environment interplay and epigenetic processes) to explain the intergenerational transmission of self-regulation. This model also incorporates potential transactional processes between generations (e.g., children’s self-regulation and parent– child interaction dynamics that may affect parents’ self-regulation) that further influence intergenerational processes. In pointing the way forward, we note key future directions and ways to address limitations in existing work throughout the review and in closing. We also conclude by noting several implications for intervention work.

417 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
18 Apr 1998-BMJ
TL;DR: This paper advances the view, widely held by epidemiologists, that Bonferroni adjustments are, at best, unnecessary and, at worst, deleterious to sound statistical inference.
Abstract: When more than one statistical test is performed in analysing the data from a clinical study, some statisticians and journal editors demand that a more stringent criterion be used for “statistical significance” than the conventional P<0051 Many well meaning researchers, eager for methodological rigour, comply without fully grasping what is at stake Recently, adjustments for multiple tests (or Bonferroni adjustments) have found their way into introductory texts on medical statistics, which has increased their apparent legitimacy This paper advances the view, widely held by epidemiologists, that Bonferroni adjustments are, at best, unnecessary and, at worst, deleterious to sound statistical inference #### Summary points Adjusting statistical significance for the number of tests that have been performed on study data—the Bonferroni method—creates more problems than it solves The Bonferroni method is concerned with the general null hypothesis (that all null hypotheses are true simultaneously), which is rarely of interest or use to researchers The main weakness is that the interpretation of a finding depends on the number of other tests performed The likelihood of type II errors is also increased, so that truly important differences are deemed non-significant Simply describing what tests of significance have been performed, and why, is generally the best way of dealing with multiple comparisons Bonferroni adjustments are based on the following reasoning1-3 If a null hypothesis is true (for instance, two treatment groups in a randomised trial do not differ in terms of cure rates), a significant difference (P<005) will be observed by chance once in 20 trials This is the type I error, or α When 20 independent tests are performed (for example, study groups are compared with regard to 20 unrelated variables) and the null hypothesis holds for all 20 comparisons, the chance of at least one test being significant is no longer 005, but 064 …

5,471 citations


"Breastfeeding, brain activation to ..." refers methods in this paper

  • ...A correction for multiple testing was not employed since there is only one primary analysis based on one hypothesis (Perneger, 1998)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, an alternative approach, which relies on the assumption that areas of true neural activity will tend to stimulate signal changes over contiguous pixels, is presented, which can improve statistical power by as much as fivefold over techniques that rely solely on adjusting per pixel false positive probabilities.
Abstract: The typical functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) study presents a formidable problem of multiple statistical comparisons (i.e., > 10,000 in a 128 x 128 image). To protect against false positives, investigators have typically relied on decreasing the per pixel false positive probability. This approach incurs an inevitable loss of power to detect statistically significant activity. An alternative approach, which relies on the assumption that areas of true neural activity will tend to stimulate signal changes over contiguous pixels, is presented. If one knows the probability distribution of such cluster sizes as a function of per pixel false positive probability, one can use cluster-size thresholds independently to reject false positives. Both Monte Carlo simulations and fMRI studies of human subjects have been used to verify that this approach can improve statistical power by as much as fivefold over techniques that rely solely on adjusting per pixel false positive probabilities.

3,094 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The neurophysiology of the mirror neuron system and its role in social cognition is reviewed and the clinical implications of mirror neuron dysfunction are discussed.
Abstract: The discovery of premotor and parietal cells known as mirror neurons in the macaque brain that fire not only when the animal is in action, but also when it observes others carrying out the same actions provides a plausible neurophysiological mechanism for a variety of important social behaviours, from imitation to empathy. Recent data also show that dysfunction of the mirror neuron system in humans might be a core deficit in autism, a socially isolating condition. Here, we review the neurophysiology of the mirror neuron system and its role in social cognition and discuss the clinical implications of mirror neuron dysfunction.

1,277 citations


"Breastfeeding, brain activation to ..." refers background in this paper

  • ...These circuits are important for processing the emotional states of others (Iacoboni & Dapretto, 2006; Völlm et al., 2005)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Using spatially and temporally unsmoothed data, this cortex‐based analysis revealed comparable results but with a set of spatially more confined group clusters and more differential group region of interest time courses.
Abstract: The Functional Image Analysis Contest (FIAC) 2005 dataset was analyzed using BrainVoyager QX. First, we performed a standard analysis of the functional and anatomical data that includes preprocessing, spatial normalization into Talairach space, hypothesis-driven statistics (one- and two-factorial, single-subject and group-level random effects, General Linear Model [GLM]) of the block- and event-related paradigms. Strong sentence and weak speaker group-level effects were detected in temporal and frontal regions. Following this standard analysis, we performed single-subject and group-level (Talairach-based) Independent Component Analysis (ICA) that highlights the presence of functionally connected clusters in temporal and frontal regions for sentence processing, besides revealing other networks related to auditory stimulation or to the default state of the brain. Finally, we applied a high-resolution cortical alignment method to improve the spatial correspondence across brains and re-run the random effects group GLM as well as the group-level ICA in this space. Using spatially and temporally unsmoothed data, this cortex-based analysis revealed comparable results but with a set of spatially more confined group clusters and more differential group region of interest time courses.

1,042 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This fMRI study used a cartoon task derived from Sarfati et al. (1997) to suggest that ToM and empathy both rely on networks associated with making inferences about mental states of others, but empathic responding requires the additional recruitment of networks involved in emotional processing.

950 citations


"Breastfeeding, brain activation to ..." refers background in this paper

  • ...These circuits are important for processing the emotional states of others (Iacoboni & Dapretto, 2006; Völlm et al., 2005)....

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  • ...These circuits are important for processing the emotional states of others (Iacoboni & Dapretto, 2006; Völlm et al., 2005)....

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