Gee Dylan G, Cohodes Emily M
Yale University, Department of Psychology.
Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2021 Oct 1;30(5):376-383. doi: 10.1177/09637214211015673. Epub 2021 Aug 6.
Across species, caregivers exert a powerful influence on the neural and behavioral development of offspring. Increasingly, both animal and human research has highlighted specific patterns in caregivers' behavior that may be especially important early in life, as well as neurobiological mechanisms linking early caregiving experiences with long-term affective behavior. Here we delineate evidence for an early sensitive period during infancy and toddlerhood when caregiver inputs that are predictable and associated with safety may become biologically embedded via influences on corticolimbic circuitry involved in emotion regulation. We propose that these caregiver signals prime corticolimbic circuitry to be receptive to later stage-specific caregiver influences, such as caregivers' external regulation of children's emotional reactivity. Following caregiving adversity that disrupts predictability and safety associated with caregivers during this sensitive period, accelerated maturation of corticolimbic circuitry may foreshorten the protracted period of plasticity and caregiver influence that is characteristic of humans. This work has implications for both prevention and intervention efforts for children exposed to early life adversity.
在所有物种中，照料者对后代的神经和行为发育都有着强大的影响。越来越多的动物和人类研究都强调了照料者行为中的特定模式，这些模式在生命早期可能尤为重要，同时也揭示了将早期照料经历与长期情感行为联系起来的神经生物学机制。在此，我们阐述了婴儿期和幼儿期存在一个早期敏感期的证据，在此期间，可预测且与安全相关的照料者输入可能会通过影响参与情绪调节的皮质边缘回路而在生物学上得以嵌入。我们提出，这些照料者信号使皮质边缘回路做好准备，以接受后期特定阶段的照料者影响，比如照料者对儿童情绪反应性的外部调节。在这一敏感期内，照料方面的逆境若破坏了与照料者相关的可预测性和安全性，皮质边缘回路的加速成熟可能会缩短人类特有的可塑性和照料者影响的漫长时期。这项研究对遭受早期生活逆境的儿童的预防和干预工作都具有启示意义。
