title: Network integrity of the parental brain in infancy supports the development of children's social competencies.
abstract: The cross-generational transmission of mammalian sociality, initiated by the parent's postpartum brain plasticity and species-typical behavior that buttress offspring's socialization, has not been studied in humans. In this longitudinal study, we measured brain response of 45 primary-caregiving parents to their infant's stimuli, observed parent-infant interactions, and assayed parental oxytocin (OT). Intra- and inter-network connectivity were computed in three main networks of the human parental brain: core limbic, embodied simulation and mentalizing. During preschool, two key child social competencies were observed: emotion regulation and socialization. Parent's network integrity in infancy predicted preschoolers' social outcomes, with subcortical and cortical network integrity foreshadowing simple evolutionary-based regulatory tactics vs complex self-regulatory strategies and advanced socialization. Parent-infant synchrony mediated the links between connectivity of the parent's embodied simulation network and preschoolers' ability to use cognitive/executive emotion regulation strategies, highlighting the inherently dyadic nature of this network and its long-term effects on tuning young to social life. Parent's inter-network core limbic-embodied simulation connectivity predicted children's OT as moderated by parental OT. Findings challenge solipsistic neuroscience perspectives by demonstrating how the parent-offspring interface enables the brain of one human to profoundly impact long-term adaptation of another.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and the Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel.
authors.forename: Eyal
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Abraham
authors.affiliation: Functional Brain Center, Wohl Institute of Advanced Imaging, Tel-Aviv SouraskyMedical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel.|School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Talma
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hendler
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and the Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel.
authors.forename: Orna
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Zagoory-Sharon
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and the Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel feldman.ruth@gmail.com.|Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Feldman
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D056348:Emotional Intelligence; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology*; D010121:Oxytocin / Q000097:blood*; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D000068356:Self-Control / Q000523:psychology*; D066107:Social Skills; D012951:Socialization; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D010121:Oxytocin
keywords: embodied simulation; mentalizing; oxytocin; parent-infant synchrony; parental brain