NeuroScience News: Parents’ Unpredictable Behavior May Impair Optimal Brain Circuit Formation

"Researchers at the University of California, Irvine are conducting pioneering research into the concept that unpredictable parental behaviors, together with unpredictable environment, such as lack of routines and frequent disasters, disrupt optimal emotional brain circuit development in children, increasing their vulnerability to mental illness and substance abuse.

“This perspective starts from basic principles of how the brain’s sensory—audio and visual—and motor circuits are established and refined, and we apply those to emotional circuits that govern reward-, stress- and fear-related behaviors.

It’s not only positive or negative parental signals, but also the patterns of these behaviors and especially their predictability or unpredictability, that are linked to adverse outcomes such as poor emotional control in later life. The latter are indicators of higher risks for mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse,” said Baram.

Complex emotional and cognitive human behavior involves many decisions and actions and are also executed by brain circuits. They receive numerous streams of information which promote activity of the neurons in the circuits.

In early life, as these emotional circuits are developing, parents are the proximate primary environment: They are the source of information that influences the child’s brain maturation.

Research involving infants and children suggests that unpredictable patterns of maternal behaviors are associated with later deficits in emotional control and behaviors.

“What’s significant about this research is that it identifies new targets for intervention and helps us think of measures we can put in place to best support the development of mentally and cognitively healthy children,” Baram said.

“Unpredictability is actionable, because we can aim to inform and educate parents, caregivers and others about the importance of predictable signals and environments to infants’ and children’s brain maturation.”

Read the full article here!

Reflection:

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#Behavior #BrainResearch #Childhood #Relationships #Parents