By University of California, Irvine, August 3, 2022
Developmental disruption makes people more susceptible to mental illness and drug dependence.
University of California, Irvine researchers are conducting ground-breaking research into the idea that unpredictable parental behaviors, coupled with an unpredictable environment, such as a lack of routines and frequent disasters, disrupt children’s ability to develop their emotional brain circuits to their full potential, making them more susceptible to mental illness and substance abuse.
Dr. Tallie Z. Baram, corresponding author and distinguished professor in the Departments of Anatomy & Neurobiology, Pediatrics, Neurology, and Physiology & Biophysics at the University of California, Irvine, and Matthew T. Birnie, first author, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Irvine, discuss the principles of emotional brain circuit formation learned from animal studies and their effects on children’s cognitive development and mental health in a study that was recently published in Science.
“This perspective starts from basic principles of how the brain’s sensory – audio and visual – and motor circuits are established and refined, and we apply those to emotional circuits that govern reward-, stress- and fear-related behaviors. It’s not only positive or negative parental signals but also the patterns of these behaviors and especially their predictability or unpredictability, that are linked to adverse outcomes such as poor emotional control in later life. The latter are indicators of higher risks for mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse,” said Baram.
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