Brain responses to social cues of attachment in mid-childhood

ABSTRACT

Physical separation from caregivers activates attachment-related behaviors. However, neural underpinnings of this biological mechanism in humans and their development are poorly understood. We examined via functional MRI brain responses to pictorial representations of separation as a function of attachment-security, attachment-avoidance, and attachment-anxiety measured using the Child-Attachment-Interview, in 30 typically developing children (9-11 years). Attachment-related stimuli elicited enhanced activation in the precuneus, temporoparietal junction area, and medial superior frontal gyrus (described as mentalization network). More negatively rated attachment stimuli yielded increased activity in the inferior frontal gyrus/anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex/ACC. Furthermore, ACC responses to attachment-related as compared to control stimuli were positively correlated with attachment-security and negatively correlated with attachment-avoidance. Our findings suggest that processing of separation cues elicits increased mentalization-related processing in children and activation of the salience network with increased negative valence of stimuli. Avoidant vs. securely attached children differentially activate ACC-dependent processes of affective evaluation.

KEYWORDS:

• fMRI
• developmental
• attachment
• mentalization
• mid-childhood

Acknowledgments

The authors want to thank Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber for her involvement in the proposal of the current study, Daniel Mödl, Tom Degen, Annabelle Starck, Ulrich Baumann, and colleagues at Sigmund-Freud-Institute and Goethe University for their contributions to data acquisition and their helpful advice for stimulus construction and data analysis.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed https://doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2020.1840791.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG) awarded to TF and CJF [grant numbers: FI 2065/1-1, FI 848/5-1], and by the Hessian Initiative for the Development of Scientific and Economic Excellence (LOEWE).