Developmental Disorders Graduate Program, Center for Biological and Health Sciences, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, São Paulo 01302-000, Brazil.
Psychological Neuroscience Laboratory, CIPsi, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga 4710-057, Portugal.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2021 Dec 30;16(12):1256-1263. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsab069.
The mother's attunement to her infant's emotional needs influences her use of touching behaviors during mother-infant interactions. Moreover, maternal touch appears to modulate infants' physiological responses to affective touch. However, little is known about the impact of maternal sensitivity on infants' touch processing at a brain level. This study explored the association between maternal sensitivity when infants (N = 24) were 7 months old and their patterns of cortical activation to touch at 12 months. Brain activation was measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Changes in oxy-hemoglobin (HbO2) and deoxy-hemoglobin (HHb) concentrations were measured in the left somatosensory cortex and right temporal cortex while infants received two types of tactile stimulation-affective and discriminative touch. Results showed that a lower maternal sensitivity was associated with a higher HbO2 response for discriminative touch over the temporal region. Additionally, infants of less sensitive mothers tended to present a higher response in HbO2 for affective touch over the somatosensory region. These findings suggest that less sensitive interactions might result in a lower exposure to maternal touch, which can be further related to infants' neural processing of touch.
母亲对婴儿情绪需求的共鸣会影响她在母婴互动中使用触摸行为的方式。此外，母亲的触摸似乎可以调节婴儿对情感触摸的生理反应。然而，对于母亲的敏感性如何在大脑水平上影响婴儿的触觉处理，我们知之甚少。本研究探讨了婴儿（N=24）7 个月大时母亲敏感性与 12 个月时婴儿触摸大脑皮层激活模式之间的关系。使用功能近红外光谱技术测量大脑激活。当婴儿接受两种类型的触觉刺激（情感和辨别触摸）时，测量左体感皮层和右颞叶皮层中氧合血红蛋白（HbO2）和脱氧血红蛋白（HHb）浓度的变化。结果表明，母亲敏感性较低与颞区辨别触摸时 HbO2 反应较高有关。此外，敏感性较低的母亲的婴儿在体感区域对情感触摸的 HbO2 反应较高。这些发现表明，敏感性较低的互动可能会导致婴儿接触母亲触摸的机会减少，这可能进一步与婴儿的触觉处理有关。
