AP22925

Measuring Nurture

Researchers at NYU, Langone Medical Center, have found that the mother's presence and social interactions, directly molds the early neural activity and growth of her offsprings' brain. They conducted this experiment by carefully watching nearly a hundred hours of video showing mother rats protecting, warming, and feeding their young pups, and then matching up what they saw to real-time electrical readings from the pups' brains. Researchers have known for a long time that mother-child bonding affects neural development but NYU Langone team's latest findings are believed to be the first to show how such natural, early maternal attachment behaviors, including nesting, nursing, and grooming of pups, impact key stages in postnatal brain development."Our research shows how in mammals the mother's sensory stimulation helps sculpt and mold the infant's growing brain and helps define the role played by 'nurturing' in healthy brain development, and offers overall greater insight into what constitutes good mothering," says Sullivan, a professor at the NYU School of Medicine and its affiliated Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research. Dr. Emma Sarro, lead study investigator at NYU Langone, says,"Our findings will help scientists and clinicians better understand the whole-brain implications of quality interactions and bonding between mothers and infants so closely after birth, and how these biological attachment behaviors frame the brain's hard wiring." We all know that the bond between a mother and her child is strong but never knew exactly how this bond is formed. Now we do.

References: NYU Langone Medical Center. "Measuring nurture: Study shows how 'good mothering' hardwires infant brain." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 17 July 2014. .

Only graders edit below this line!

Grader #1: 1405796386] Grader #2: 1406046867 Grader #3: 1406056329 Grader #4: 1406159085 Grader #5: 1404308809] =Grading Form= media type="custom" key="25032734"