Ramasubbu Rajamannar, Masalovich Svetlana, Peltier Scott, Holtzheimer Paul E, Heim Christine, Mayberg Helen S
Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Univesity of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta.
Can J Psychiatry. 2007 Nov;52(11):726-34. doi: 10.1177/070674370705201107.
The mother-child relationship may have important implications for emotional development and adult psychopathology. The objective of this study was to examine brain responses to processing maternal faces in healthy adult women.
Ten healthy adult female volunteers with adequate early-life maternal care and a normal relationship with their living mothers participated in the study. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine brain responses to pictures of the subject's mother, a close female friend, and 2 age-matched female strangers during passive viewing, valence (emotional), and salience (self-relevance) evaluations.
The main contrast of mother, compared with all others (that is, friend and older and younger strangers), demonstrated the following: first, significant activation in the left posterior cingulate cortex-precuneus (PCC-Pcu), collapsed across all tasks; second, right ventromedial prefrontal cortex-anterior cingulate cortex (VMPFC-ACC) activation during the valence condition; and third, left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activation during the salience condition. In the region-of-interest analyses, the VMPFC-ACC and DLPFC showed significant activations in response to mothers' faces and deactivation in response to control faces. Among the 3 regions, only VMPFC-ACC activity distinguished the unique processing of one's own mother's face from that of a close friend. PCC-Pcu activations demonstrate a graded response (mother > friend > strangers) and, further, demonstrated differential response with respect to mothering style.
The activation in prefrontal and cingulate cortices related to maternal face processing is consistent with their implicated roles in mother-infant interactions, personal familiarity, and emotional and self-relevant processing. These findings suggest a neural basis for maternal attachment and propose a focus for future studies aimed at investigating the impact of disrupted maternal attachment on emotional development.
母婴关系可能对情感发展和成人精神病理学具有重要影响。本研究的目的是检查健康成年女性在处理母亲面孔时的大脑反应。
十名在生命早期得到充分母亲照料且与在世母亲关系正常的健康成年女性志愿者参与了本研究。在被动观看、效价（情感）和显著性（自我相关性）评估期间，使用功能磁共振成像来检查大脑对受试者母亲、亲密女性朋友和两名年龄匹配的女性陌生人照片的反应。
母亲面孔与所有其他面孔（即朋友以及年长和年轻陌生人）的主要对比显示如下：第一，在所有任务中，左侧后扣带回皮层 - 楔前叶（PCC - Pcu）均有显著激活；第二，在效价条件下右侧腹内侧前额叶皮层 - 前扣带回皮层（VMPFC - ACC）激活；第三，在显著性条件下左侧背外侧前额叶皮层（DLPFC）激活。在感兴趣区域分析中，VMPFC - ACC和DLPFC对母亲面孔有显著激活，对对照面孔则有失活。在这三个区域中，只有VMPFC - ACC的活动能够区分自己母亲的面孔与亲密朋友面孔的独特处理方式。PCC - Pcu的激活表现出分级反应（母亲 > 朋友 > 陌生人），并且进一步显示出与养育方式相关的差异反应。
前额叶和扣带回皮层中与母亲面孔处理相关的激活与它们在母婴互动、个人熟悉度以及情感和自我相关处理中所涉及的作用一致。这些发现为母婴依恋提供了神经基础，并为未来旨在研究母婴依恋中断对情感发展影响的研究提出了一个重点。
