Cargando…

Environmental and genetic influences on early attachment

Attachment theory predicts and subsequent empirical research has amply demonstrated that individual variations in patterns of early attachment behaviour are primarily influenced by differences in sensitive responsiveness of caregivers. However, meta-analyses have shown that parenting behaviour accou...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Gervai, Judit
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2753321/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19732441
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-3-25
_version_ 1782172333265387520
author Gervai, Judit
author_facet Gervai, Judit
author_sort Gervai, Judit
collection PubMed
description Attachment theory predicts and subsequent empirical research has amply demonstrated that individual variations in patterns of early attachment behaviour are primarily influenced by differences in sensitive responsiveness of caregivers. However, meta-analyses have shown that parenting behaviour accounts for about one third of the variance in attachment security or disorganisation. The exclusively environmental explanation has been challenged by results demonstrating some, albeit inconclusive, evidence of the effect of infant temperament. In this paper, after reviewing briefly the well-demonstrated familial and wider environmental influences, the evidence is reviewed for genetic and gene-environment interaction effects on developing early attachment relationships. Studies investigating the interaction of genes of monoamine neurotransmission with parenting environment in the course of early relationship development suggest that children's differential susceptibility to the rearing environment depends partly on genetic differences. In addition to the overview of environmental and genetic contributions to infant attachment, and especially to disorganised attachment relevant to mental health issues, the few existing studies of gene-attachment interaction effects on development of childhood behavioural problems are also reviewed. A short account of the most important methodological problems to be overcome in molecular genetic studies of psychological and psychiatric phenotypes is also given. Finally, animal research focusing on brain-structural aspects related to early care and the new, conceptually important direction of studying environmental programming of early development through epigenetic modification of gene functioning is examined in brief.
format Text
id pubmed-2753321
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2009
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-27533212009-09-29 Environmental and genetic influences on early attachment Gervai, Judit Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health Review Attachment theory predicts and subsequent empirical research has amply demonstrated that individual variations in patterns of early attachment behaviour are primarily influenced by differences in sensitive responsiveness of caregivers. However, meta-analyses have shown that parenting behaviour accounts for about one third of the variance in attachment security or disorganisation. The exclusively environmental explanation has been challenged by results demonstrating some, albeit inconclusive, evidence of the effect of infant temperament. In this paper, after reviewing briefly the well-demonstrated familial and wider environmental influences, the evidence is reviewed for genetic and gene-environment interaction effects on developing early attachment relationships. Studies investigating the interaction of genes of monoamine neurotransmission with parenting environment in the course of early relationship development suggest that children's differential susceptibility to the rearing environment depends partly on genetic differences. In addition to the overview of environmental and genetic contributions to infant attachment, and especially to disorganised attachment relevant to mental health issues, the few existing studies of gene-attachment interaction effects on development of childhood behavioural problems are also reviewed. A short account of the most important methodological problems to be overcome in molecular genetic studies of psychological and psychiatric phenotypes is also given. Finally, animal research focusing on brain-structural aspects related to early care and the new, conceptually important direction of studying environmental programming of early development through epigenetic modification of gene functioning is examined in brief. BioMed Central 2009-09-04 /pmc/articles/PMC2753321/ /pubmed/19732441 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-3-25 Text en Copyright © 2009 Gervai; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Review
Gervai, Judit
Environmental and genetic influences on early attachment
title Environmental and genetic influences on early attachment
title_full Environmental and genetic influences on early attachment
title_fullStr Environmental and genetic influences on early attachment
title_full_unstemmed Environmental and genetic influences on early attachment
title_short Environmental and genetic influences on early attachment
title_sort environmental and genetic influences on early attachment
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2753321/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19732441
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-3-25
work_keys_str_mv AT gervaijudit environmentalandgeneticinfluencesonearlyattachment