ABSTRACT

The mother-infant relationship is one of the most important bonds among all mammals and develops when a mother shows emotional and physical attention toward her infant. Studies suggest that maternal brain alterations, including structural and functional changes, may help mothers to form a strong bond with their infant. Investigation of mothers’ unique response to her own infant, when smiling, crying or playing, could be the first step to uncover the neural bases of maternal-infant bonding. Studies are beginning to explore maternal brain changes underlying the process of mother-infant bonding. In this short review, we present an overview of the growing literature about maternal brain changes and neural responses to infant stimuli, which may underlie the process of forming the maternal-infant bond in healthy, non-clinical samples. Taken together, the maternal brain network consists mostly of areas related to salience/reward and emot processing, including the precuneus cortex, medial frontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, caudate and nucleus accumbens, amygdala, and insula. Recommendations for future research are also discussed.

摘要

母婴关系是所有哺乳动物之间最重要的纽带之一，当母亲对婴儿表现出情感和身体上的关注时，母婴关系就会发展起来。研究表明，母亲大脑的改变，包括结构和功能的变化，可能有助于母亲与婴儿建立牢固的联系。调查母亲对自己婴儿的独特反应，当微笑、哭泣或玩耍时，可能是揭示母婴关系神经基础的第一步。研究开始探索母婴结合过程背后的母体大脑变化。在这篇简短的评论中，我们概述了越来越多的关于母亲大脑变化和对婴儿刺激的神经反应的文献，这可能是在健康的非临床样本中形成母婴联系过程的基础。综合起来，母体大脑网络主要由与显着性/奖励和情绪处理相关的区域组成，包括楔前叶皮层、内侧额叶皮层、前扣带回皮层、眶额皮层、尾状核和伏隔核、杏仁核和岛叶。还讨论了对未来研究的建议。