5.7.1: Sensitive caregiving

A Sensitive Caregivers Role

Caregiver sensitivity refers to a caregiver’s ability to recognize a child’s interaction cues and emotional and physical needs and to respond to them appropriately and quickly enough from the child’s perspective. Emerging research suggests that caregiver sensitivity relates to children’s brain structure (Bernier et al., 2019; Perry, Blair, & Sullivan, 2017). For example, greater sensitivity from caregivers is associated with a smaller amygdala and hippocampus (Lee et al., 2019; Rifkin-Graboi et al., 2015). Another study found that greater caregiver sensitivity was correlated with larger gray matter volumes in infants (Sethna et al., 2017). ^{[1] [2]}

Definition: Hippocampus

 Located within the temporal lobe, it has a major role in learning and memory

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Location of the amygdala and hippocampus within the limbic system.  Starting from the front and moving towards the back: The amygdala is shown in dark pink and is located near the lower front part of the brain, close to where the brain curves inward from the bottom.  Just behind and slightly above the amygdala, the hippocampus is represented in a light blue color. It has a shape somewhat like a seahorse and is nestled below the brain's surface. Moving upward and toward the center of the brain, there are the hypothalamic nuclei depicted in a light pink color.  Directly above the hypothalamic nuclei, in the core of the brain, there is the thalamus, which is highlighted in orange. Arching above the thalamus is the corpus callosum, displayed in teal, resembling a bridge that connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Finally, curving around the top and front of the thalamus is the cingulate gyrus, shown in a salmon color, following a path like a crest or ridge along the inner surface of the brain.^[3]

Definition: Limbic system

Involved in processing both emotion and memory and is made up of a number of different structures, but three of the most important are the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the hypothalamus

Caregiver sensitivity is also associated with brain networks and connections. When caregivers are more sensitive, children show a greater connection between the anterior hippocampal functional network and the visual-processing network (Wang et al., 2019). Caregiver sensitivity has also been shown to relate to resting state functional connectivity between cortical and subcortical brain structures during infancy (Rifkin-Graboi et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2019) as early as five months of age (Chajes et al., 2022) and in higher-order brain networks, like the fronto-parietal network, during childhood (Dégeilh et al., 2018; Pozzi et al., 2021). Caregiver sensitivity during infancy is associated with functional connectivity of the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) later in childhood, at five years of age (Copeland et al., 2022). The PFC is one of the key brain regions related to emotional and cognitive regulation (Dixon, Thiruchselvam, Todd, & Christoff, 2017; Kolb et al., 2012; Miller, 2000), implying that variation in caregiver sensitivity in infancy may influence child brain functional connectivity in regions related to self-regulation. ^{[4] [5]}

Definition: Prefrontal cortex (PFC)

Located at the most frontal part of the frontal lobe and involved in executive functions, such as planning, decision making, working memory, personality expression, moderating social behavior and controlling certain aspects of speech and language

An intervention study found that when caregivers were trained to provide more sensitive caregiving, children exhibited greater activation in brain areas that support social-cognitive development (Valadez et al., 2020). This study is especially important for two reasons. First, because it implemented a randomized control design, meaning half of the caregivers were randomly assigned to the sensitive caregiving intervention and the other half to an alternative intervention proven to support motor, language and cognitive abilities (but did not have a sensitivity component), the results can be taken as causal. This means the results of the study suggest that caregivers’ sensitivity training caused greater brain activation. Second, this study suggests that when caregivers of infants and toddlers learn about the construct of sensitivity and practice it during everyday interactions, they can have a positive impact on children’s brain development.

Attributions:

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• ^[1] Copeland et al., (2022). Maternal sensitivity at the age of 8 months associates with local connectivity of the medial prefrontal cortex in children at 5 years of age. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 16. CC by 4.0
• ^[2] Chajes et al., (2022). Examining the role of socioeconomic status and maternal sensitivity in predicting functional brain network connectivity in 5-month-old infants. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 16. CC by 4.0
• ^[3] Image from OpenStax College is licensed under CC by 3.0
• ^[4] Copeland et al., (2022). Maternal sensitivity at the age of 8 months associates with local connectivity of the medial prefrontal cortex in children at 5 years of age. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 16. CC by 4.0
• ^[5]Chajes et al., (2022). Examining the role of socioeconomic status and maternal sensitivity in predicting functional brain network connectivity in 5-month-old infants. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 16. CC by 4.0