Early Brain Development Impacted by Mother’s Presence

According to a study conducted by NYU Langone Medical Center, a mother’s presence can not only help soothe pain in infants, but it may also impact early brain development by altering gene activity in a part of the brain involved in emotions. By carefully analyzing what genes were active in infant rat brains when the mother was present or not, the NYU researchers found that several hundred genes were either more, or less, active in infant rats experiencing pain compared to those that were not. With their mothers present, however, fewer than 100 genes were similarly expressed. “Our study shows that a mother comforting her infant in pain does not just elicit a behavioral response, but also the comforting itself modifies — for better or worse — critical neural circuitry during early brain development,” said the senior author of the study. During the study, researchers performed genetic analyses on tissue from the almond-sized amygdala region of the infant rat brains, responsible for processing emotions such as fear and pleasure. To read more about this study, click here.