Mom's presence alters brain

Mother’s presence impacts infants’ brains

If you’ve spent any time with small children, you probably know the mystical quality of a mother’s comfort.

From earliest infancy, it is obvious the mother’s touch is unrivalled in its ability to soothe, and most toddlers seem to believe a kiss or snuggle from mom will make a scraped knee feel better.

Research in rats is finding there is more than folklore and loving feelings behind the effectiveness of a mother’s presence — and the implications could benefit pain management for human infants.

The study out of NYU Langone Medical Center found a mother’s TLC is helpful for soothing pain in infants and may also impact early brain development by altering gene activity in a part of the brain involved with emotions.

In this study, researchers analyzed which genes were active in infant rat brains when the mother was present or not – and they found several hundred genes were more or less active in rat infants experiencing pain than rats not in pain.

When mothers were present, fewer than 100 genes were similarly expressed.

This was the first study to show the short-term effects of maternal care in a distressed infant rat’s brain.

It was also designed to support earlier research by the same group into the long-term consequences of differences in how mammals are nurtured from birth.

Obviously, there is a difference between an infant rat and an infant human. Much research will still need to be done before we can say whether findings in this study can be translated to our own species.

Still, even with rats, we share more similarities than differences, and this is a good starting point.

This study did show that a mother comforting her infant does more than simply elicit a behavioural response — it actually modifies brain circuitry.

When a human infant is in pain due to medical intervention, sickness or injury, we always want to do what we can to reduce suffering. Unfortunately, opiate pain medications are often contraindicated for children because of their addictive properties.

We are left with a significant challenge as to how we can best manage pain.

If maternal presence, cuddling, scent or other cues can help, it is beneficial to learn how and why this works.

I think this research will also shed more light on the ways in which parental nurture truly does affect brain development.

This will not only be important in pain research, but likely also in mental health as we know childhood adversity or lack of nurture can have a negative, long-term impact.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.