Hofer M A
Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City, NY, USA.
Psychosom Med. 1996 Nov-Dec;58(6):570-81. doi: 10.1097/00006842-199611000-00005.
To describe how an animal model system can be used to explore basic questions about the nature of loss and the effects of early loss on later vulnerability to disease.
The physiological and behavioral responses of infant rats to separation from their mothers are first described and then analyzed experimentally into component mechanisms.
These studies have revealed an extensive layer of processes underlying the psychological constructs generally used to understand the response to loss. Hidden within the observable interactions of parent and offspring, we found a number of discrete sensorimotor, thermal, and nutrient-based events that have unexpected long-term regulatory effects on specific components of infant physiology and behavior. Release from all of these inhibitory and excitatory regulators together during maternal separation constitutes a novel mechanism by which the experience of loss can be translated into a complex patterned response. Evidence for early regulatory processes has also been found in monkey and human mother-infant interactions. Here they may well constitute the building blocks from which attachment and object representations develop. We and others have found long-term effects of loss, and of selective replacement of regulators, on behavioral development and on later vulnerability to disease.
The results give us a new understanding of early attachment as a developmental force and of human grief as a risk to health.
描述如何利用动物模型系统来探究关于丧失的本质以及早期丧失对后期疾病易感性影响的基本问题。
首先描述幼鼠与母亲分离后的生理和行为反应，然后通过实验分析其组成机制。
这些研究揭示了通常用于理解对丧失反应的心理结构背后广泛的过程层次。在亲子间可观察到的互动中，我们发现了一些离散的感觉运动、热和基于营养的事件，它们对幼体生理和行为的特定组成部分具有意想不到的长期调节作用。在母婴分离期间，所有这些抑制性和兴奋性调节因子的释放共同构成了一种新机制，通过这种机制，丧失的经历可以转化为复杂的模式化反应。在猴子和人类母婴互动中也发现了早期调节过程的证据。在这里，它们很可能构成了依恋和客体表征发展的基石。我们和其他人发现，丧失以及调节因子的选择性替代对行为发展和后期疾病易感性有长期影响。
这些结果让我们对早期依恋作为一种发展力量以及人类悲伤作为健康风险有了新的认识。
