Dataset Information

Attachment Disorganization in Infancy: A Developmental Precursor to Maladaptive Social Information Processing at Age 8.

ABSTRACT: This study examined infant attachment as a predictor of social information processing (SIP) in middle childhood (n = 82) while controlling for parental sensitivity in middle childhood. Attachment quality was assessed using the Strange Situation. Although attachment insecurity did not predict SIP, attachment disorganization positively predicted the early SIP steps of hostile attributional bias and aggressive goals. Children with disorganized attachments interpreted ambiguous provocations more negatively (as indicating more hostility, rejection, and disrespect and as resulting in more anger) and endorsed significantly more revenge and dominance goals than children with organized attachments. In contrast, parental sensitivity negatively predicted the later SIP step of positive expectations for aggressive responses. Results further our understanding of the adverse outcomes associated with attachment disorganization.

SUBMITTER: Zajac L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6395572 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Attachment Disorganization in Infancy: A Developmental Precursor to Maladaptive Social Information Processing at Age 8.

Zajac Lindsay L Bookhout Megan K MK Hubbard Julie A JA Carlson Elizabeth A EA Dozier Mary M

Child development 20180831 1

This study examined infant attachment as a predictor of social information processing (SIP) in middle childhood (n = 82) while controlling for parental sensitivity in middle childhood. Attachment quality was assessed using the Strange Situation. Although attachment insecurity did not predict SIP, attachment disorganization positively predicted the early SIP steps of hostile attributional bias and aggressive goals. Children with disorganized attachments interpreted ambiguous provocations more neg ...[more]

PMID: 30168845

Similar Datasets

Project description:Maladaptive social information processing, such as hostile attributional bias and aggressive response generation, is associated with childhood maladjustment. Although social information processing problems are correlated with heightened physiological responses to social threat, few studies have examined their associations with neural threat circuitry, specifically amygdala activation to social threat.A cohort of 310 boys participated in an ongoing longitudinal study and completed questionnaires and laboratory tasks assessing their social and cognitive characteristics the boys were between 10 and 12 years of age. At age 20, 178 of these young men underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging and a social threat task. At age 22, adult criminal arrest records and self-reports of impulsiveness were obtained.Path models indicated that maladaptive social information-processing at ages 10 and 11 predicted increased left amygdala reactivity to fear faces, an ambiguous threat, at age 20 while accounting for childhood antisocial behavior, empathy, IQ, and socioeconomic status. Exploratory analyses indicated that aggressive response generation - the tendency to respond to threat with reactive aggression - predicted left amygdala reactivity to fear faces and was concurrently associated with empathy, antisocial behavior, and hostile attributional bias, whereas hostile attributional bias correlated with IQ. Although unrelated to social information-processing problems, bilateral amygdala reactivity to anger faces at age 20 was unexpectedly predicted by low IQ at age 11. Amygdala activation did not mediate associations between social information processing and number of criminal arrests, but both impulsiveness at age 22 and arrests were correlated with right amygdala reactivity to anger facial expressions at age 20.Childhood social information processing and IQ predicted young men's amygdala response to threat a decade later, which suggests that childhood social-cognitive characteristics are associated with the development of neural threat processing and adult adjustment.

Project description:Hormones regulate behavior either through activational effects that facilitate the acute expression of specific behaviors or through organizational effects that shape the development of the nervous system thereby altering adult behavior. Much research has implicated the neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) in acute modulation of various aspects of social behaviors across vertebrate species, and OXT signaling is associated with the developmental social deficits observed in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs); however, little is known about the role of OXT in the neurodevelopment of the social brain. We show that perturbation of OXT neurons during early zebrafish development led to a loss of dopaminergic neurons, associated with visual processing and reward, and blunted the neuronal response to social stimuli in the adult brain. Ultimately, adult fish whose OXT neurons were ablated in early life, displayed altered functional connectivity within social decision-making brain nuclei both in naive state and in response to social stimulus and became less social. We propose that OXT neurons have an organizational role, namely, to shape forebrain neuroarchitecture during development and to acquire an affiliative response toward conspecifics.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Social behavior is developed over the lifetime of an organism and the neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) modulates social behaviors across vertebrate species, and is associated with neuro-developmental social deficits such as autism. However, whether OXT plays a role in the developmental maturation of neural systems that are necessary for social behavior remains poorly explored. We show that proper behavioral and neural response to social stimuli depends on a developmental process orchestrated by OXT neurons. Animals whose OXT system is ablated in early life show blunted neuronal and behavioral responses to social stimuli as well as wide ranging disruptions in the functional connectivity of the social brain. We provide a window into the mechanisms underlying OXT-dependent developmental processes that implement adult sociality.

Dataset Information

Attachment Disorganization in Infancy: A Developmental Precursor to Maladaptive Social Information Processing at Age 8.

Publications

Attachment Disorganization in Infancy: A Developmental Precursor to Maladaptive Social Information Processing at Age 8.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets