Shaping internal working models : parental love withdrawal, oxytocin, and asymmetric frontal brain activity affect socio-emotional information processing

The aim of this thesis is to gain insight into the associations between experiences of parental love withdrawal, oxytocin, and asymmetric frontal brain activity (reflecting basic motivational tendencies) on the one hand, and (neural) processing of and responses to socio-emotional stimuli on the other. The first chapters focus on the neural processing of emotional stimuli, investigating whether experiences of love withdrawal (Chapters 2 and 3) and oxytocin administration (Chapter 3) are related to event-related potential (ERP) responses to emotional facial expressions accompanying feedback, within a double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subjects design. Chapter 4 focuses on behavioral responses to emotionally relevant information: donating money to charity after viewing a video of a child in need. The central question in this chapter is whether asymmetric frontal brain activity, as a measure of approach-withdrawal motivation, predicts charitable donations, and, in addition, the possibility that asymmetric frontal brain activity mediates or moderates effects of oxytocin and parental love withdrawal on donating behavior is explored.LEI Universiteit LeidenFSW - Gezinsopvoeding - Ou

Changes in face-specific neural processes explain reduced cuteness and approachability of infants with cleft lip

The current study investigated whether changes in the neural processing of faces of infants with a facial abnormality – a cleft lip – mediate effects of the cleft lip on judgments of infant cuteness and approachability. Event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to pictures of faces of healthy infants and infants with a cleft lip, and ratings of cuteness and approachability of these infant faces, were obtained from 30 females. Infants with a cleft lip were rated as less attractive (less cute and approachable) than healthy infants, and both the N170 and P2 components of the ERP were of reduced amplitude in response to pictures of infants with a cleft lip. Importantly, decreased configural processing of infant faces with a cleft lip, as evidenced by reduced N170 amplitudes, mediated the reduced attractiveness ratings for infants with a cleft lip compared to healthy infants. Our findings help elucidate the mechanisms behind the less favorable responses to infants with a cleft lip, highlighting the role of face-specific rather than domain-general neural processes

Neural responses to children’s faces: Test–retest reliability of structural and functional MRI

Introduction: Functional MRI (fMRI) is commonly used to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying psychological processes and behavioral responses. However, to draw well‐founded conclusions from fMRI studies, more research on the reliability of fMRI is needed. Methods: We invited a sample of 41 female students to participate in two identical fMRI sessions, separated by 5 weeks on average. To investigate the potential effect of left‐handedness on the stability of neural activity, we oversampled left‐handed participants (N = 20). Inside the scanner, we presented photographs of familiar and unfamiliar children's faces preceded by neutral and threatening primes to the participants. We calculated intraclass correlations (ICC

Attractiveness and neural processing of infant faces: Effects of a facial abnormality but not dopamine

Education and Child Studie

The impact of oxytocin administration on charitable donating is moderated by experiences of parental love-withdrawal

Oxytocin has been implicated in a variety of prosocial processes but most of this work has used laboratory tasks (such as the ultimatum game or the dictator game) to evaluate oxytocin's prosocial effects. In a double blind randomized trial we examined the influence of intranasal administration of oxytocin on real, high-cost donating money to a charity with-out any expectation for reciprocation. Participants in the current study were 57 female undergraduate students, aged 18-30 years, who received a nasal spray containing either 24 IU of oxytocin or a placebo, and were then given the opportunity to make a charita-ble donation. The participants reported how often their parents used love-withdrawal as a disciplinary strategy involving withholding love and affection after a failure or misbehavior. Oxytocin appeared to increase the participants' willingness to donate money to a charity but only in participants who experienced low levels of parental love-withdrawal. In contrast, oxytocin administration was ineffective in enhancing donating behavior in individuals who experienced high levels of parental love-withdrawal. We conclude that the positive effect of oxytocin administration on prosocial behavior may be limited to individuals with supportive backgrounds

Behavioral genetics of temperament and frontal asymmetry in early childhood

Temperament has been suggested to be influenced by genetic and environmental factors. The current study examined genetic shared environmental and unique environmental factors accounting for variation in Fear, Effortful Control (EC), and Frontal Asymmetry (FA) in 4- to 6-year-old children using bivariate behavioral genetic modeling. We included a total of 214 same-sex twin pairs: 127 monozygotic (MZ) and 87 dizygotic (DZ) pairs. FA was measured during a rest electroencephalogram (EEG) recording, and Fear and EC were measured using parent report. Results show that differences between twins were best explained by genetic factors (about a quarter of the variance) and unique environmental factors (about three quarters of the variance). However, the cross-trait, within-twin correlations were not significant, implying no overlapping genetic or environmental factors on Fear and EC or on Fear and FA. Future research should try to elucidate the large role of unique environmental factors in explaining variance in these temperament-related traits

Effects of the Video-feedback intervention to promote positive parenting and sensitive discipline on mothers' neural responses to child faces: A randomized controlled ERP study including pre- and post-intervention measures

Parenting interventions have proven to be effective in enhancing positive parenting behavior and child outcomes. However, the neurocognitive mechanisms explaining the efficacy remain largely unknown. We tested effects of the Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD) on mothers' neural processing of child faces. Our primary focus was on the N170 and the secondary focus on the LPP. We expected the intervention to enhance the amplitudes of both ERP components in response to emotional compared to neutral faces. A total of 66 mothers visited the lab for two identical sessions separated by 4.28 months (SD = 0.86) during which a random 33% of the mothers received the VIPP-SD. During both pre- and post-intervention sessions, mothers' electroencephalographic (EEG) activity in response to photographs of children's neutral, happy and angry facial expressions were acquired. In contrast to our expectations, we found smaller (less negative) N170 amplitudes at post-test in the intervention group. There was no intervention effect on the LPP, although overall LPP amplitudes were more positive for neutral and angry compared to happy faces. Our study shows that the N170 is affected by the VIPP-SD, suggesting that the intervention promotes efficient, less effortful face processing. Trial registration: Dutch Trial Register: NTR5312; Date registered: 3 January 2017.Education and Child Studie

Social judgments, frontal asymmetry, and aggressive behavior in young children: A replication study using EEG

Development Psychopathology in context: famil