Maternal sensitivity and the empathic brain: Influences of early life maltreatment |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of General Psychiatry, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Voßstraße 2, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany;2. Department of Psychology, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 Munich, Germany;3. Clinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, SHG Hospital, Waldstraße 40, 66271 Kleinbittersdorf, Germany;1. Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA;2. Department of Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA;3. College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA;4. Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Medical Center, Houston, TX, USA;5. Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA;6. Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA;7. Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA;8. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Chicago, IL, USA;9. Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, IL, USA;10. Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center, Institute of Living, Hartford, CT, USA;11. Department of Psychology, BioImaging Research Center, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA;12. Department of Neuroscience, BioImaging Research Center, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA;13. Departments of Psychiatry and Neurobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA;14. Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA;15. Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA;1. Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA;2. Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA;3. Department of Psychology, Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA;4. Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA;5. Biostatistics Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA;1. Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Social Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden;2. Department of Community Health Sciences, Fielding School of Public Health and California Center for Population Research, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States;3. Department of Social Work, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden;4. Department of Public Health Sciences, Division Public Health Epidemiology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden;5. Center for Epidemiology and Community Medicine, Stockholm County Council, Stockholm, Sweden;1. Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Berlin, Germany;2. University Hospital Heidelberg, Centre for Psychosocial Medicine, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Heidelberg, Germany;3. Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Berlin, Germany;4. Vivantes Clinical Centre Spandau, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Berlin, Germany;5. Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Department of Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychology and Counseling Psychology, Munich, Germany;6. University Hospital of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Bern, Switzerland;7. University Hospital Heidelberg, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, Institute of Medical Psychology, Germany;8. University Hospital Heidelberg, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, General Psychiatry, Germany;1. Clinical Research Unit, Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia;2. Sunshine Coast Mind and Neuroscience, University of the Sunshine Coast, QLD, 4558, Australia;1. Department of General Psychiatry, University Hospital of Heidelberg, Vossstrasse 4, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany;2. Research Division of Mind and Brain, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité Universitaetsmedizin Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany;3. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Centre Freiburg im Breisgau, Hauptstrasse 5, 79104 Freiburg, Germany;4. Division of Medical Psychology, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Bonn, Sigmund-Freud-Strasse 25, 53127 Bonn, Germany;5. Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of Bonn, Sigmund-Freud-Strasse 25, 53127 Bonn, Germany;6. Psychology School at the Fresenius University of Applied Sciences Berlin, Jägerstraße 32, 10117 Berlin, Germany;7. Psychiatric University Clinics Basel, Wilhelm Klein-Strasse 27, 4012 Basel, Switzerland |
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| Abstract: | One of the most striking characteristics of early life maltreatment (ELM) is the risk of transmission across generations, which could be linked to differences in maternal behavior. Maternal sensitivity includes appropriate and positive affective exchanges between mother and child. Mothers with a history of ELM have been found to show a lower sensitivity representing a significant risk factor for maltreating their own children. 25 mothers with and 28 mothers without sexual and/or physical childhood maltreatment (as assessed with the Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse interview) and their children participated in a standardized mother–child interaction task. Videotaped interactions were rated by two independent trained raters based on the Emotional Availability Scales. In addition, empathic capabilities were assessed with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. High resolution structural magnetic resonance brain images of the mothers were analyzed with unbiased voxel-based morphometry and correlated with maternal sensitivity. Results indicate that mothers with ELM were less sensitive in the standardized interaction with their own child. In non-maltreated control mothers, maternal sensitivity was positively related to anterior insular grey matter volume, a region which is crucially involved in emotional empathy, while there was a positive association between maternal sensitivity and grey matter volume in parts of the cognitive empathy network such as the superior temporal sulcus and temporal pole region in mothers with ELM. These results implicate that neurostructural alterations associated with poor maternal sensitivity might be a sequelae of ELM and that mothers with ELM may try to compensate deficits in emotional empathy by recruiting brain regions involved in cognitive empathy when interacting with their child. Thus, findings suggest possible coping strategies of mother with ELM to prevent an intergenerational transmission of abuse. |
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| Keywords: | Empathy Trauma Physical and sexual abuse Theory of mind Mother–child interaction Structural magnetic resonance imaging |
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