Great Domains (From Individual to Social Cognition)

Infant Attachment and Mother Infant Relationship (Theoretical and Experimental)

e-Team:  Débora Czarnabay, Lucero Cuevas, Alondra Casas, Maria Esther Gutiérrez, Christell Becerra, Antuane Wharton, Renato Cano, Joelma Alves, Catia Correa, Enver Oruro and Grace E. Pardo. 

Introduction

Attachment is the first social bond formed between a human infant and their primary caregiver, typically the mother.  In humans, the absence of a secure attachment during early development, due to neglect, institutionalization, or insufficient caregiving, has been strongly associated with long-term consequences across emotional, cognitive, and physiological domains. While these associations are well established, the neurobiological mechanisms linking early caregiving experiences to long-term outcomes remain poorly understood. Experimental studies in rodents, using paradigms such as maternal separation, limited bedding and nesting (LBN), and scarcity-adversity, aim to recreate disruptions in early caregiving and assess their effects on gene expression, neural circuitry, and behavior. However, many of these studies assess outcomes in adulthood, often detached from the critical period of intense mother-infant interaction where early experiences shape developing neural systems. Since 2019, our group has explored the neurobiological foundations of attachment through a series of seminars and collaborative meetings, combining experimental, computational, and translational approaches. These discussions have focused on the maturation of olfactory circuits involved in maternal recognition, the sensitive periods for attachment learning, and the structural remodeling of neurons during early development. More recently, we have expanded our perspective to include human mother-infant dyads, focusing on maternal sensitivity, intergenerational transmission, and the construction of co-regulated interactional states. The 2024 eSeminar on the Mother-Infant Relationship brought together researchers from neuroscience, developmental psychology, and complex systems science to identify key challenges in this field. These include the need for multiscale models of attachment, experimental paradigms that capture moment-to-moment interactional dynamics, and translational frameworks that link human and animal research. Below, we present the main challenges identified during this seminar and the directions they suggest for future inquiry.   

Main Challenges

1. Tracing the dynamic of mother-infant relationship formation 

2. Developing functional cross-species models for attachment research

3. Understanding the mother-infant relationship as a complex system. 

Recommended Literature 

Pardo, G. E., Cuevas, L. B., Vásquez-Lizárraga, J., Pary, A. C., Pacheco-Otalora, L. F., & Oruro, E. M. (2025). Temporal variation in maternal behavioral transitions under limited nesting conditions across postpartum windows in rats: Implications for neurobehavioral development. Behavioural Brain Research, 115769. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2025.115769

Oruro, E. M., & Pardo, G. E. (2025). From morphogenesis to morphodynamics neuroscience: Modeling the growth of dendritic shape in pyramidal cells of the piriform cortex in infant rats. European Physical Journal B, 98, 82. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/s10051-025-00917-2

Pardo, G. E., Cuevas, L. B., Pacheco-Otálora, L. F., & Oruro, E. M. (2024). Altered patterns of maternal behavior transitions in rats exposed to limited bedding and nesting material paradigm. Brain and Behavior, 14(10), e70113. https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.70113

Oruro, E. M.*, Pardo, G. V. E.*, Lucion, A. B., Calcagnotto, M. E., & Idiart, M. A. P. (2020b). The maturational characteristics of the GABA input in the anterior piriform cortex may also contribute to the rapid learning of the maternal odor during the sensitive period. Learning & Memory, 27(12), 493–502. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.052217.120
⭐ Cover article. Co-first authors.

Oruro, E. M.*, Pardo, G. V. E.*, Lucion, A. B., Calcagnotto, M. E., & Idiart, M. A. P. (2020a). Maturation of pyramidal cells in anterior piriform cortex may be sufficient to explain the end of early olfactory learning in rats. Learning & Memory, 27(1), 20–32. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.050724.119
⭐ Cover article. Co-first authors.

Pardo, G. E., Lucion, A. B., & Calcagnotto, M. E. (2018). Development of inhibitory synaptic transmission in the anterior piriform cortex and the influence of early olfactory deprivation. International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience, 71, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdevneu.2018.07.008