The Neural Substrates of Attachment-Derived Internal Working Models (IWMs) across Human Development.

• In Event: 3-076 - Attachment and social cognition – a bio-psychological perspective from infancy to early adulthood.

Integrative Statement

Attachment theory postulates that a child’s attachment relationship with their primary caregiver(s) leads to the development of so-called internal working models (IWMs; Bowlby, 1969). These IWMs are conceptualized as cognitive frameworks comprising mental representations for understanding the world, oneself, and others, in the sense that memories of early social interactions will be used to guide future social and emotional behavior and thus social emotional responsiveness in general (Bretherton, & Munholland, 1999). Although a central aspect of attachment theory, the neural substrates of IWMs remain poorly understood, especially what is concerning their emergence as a developmental process.
In this paper, I will present data obtained using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in children (ages 8-12), adolescents (ages 12-19), and adults (age >20) from three different social cognitive emotional tasks aimed at elucidating different aspects of IWMs across development. The first task investigated brain activity during positive versus negative social feedback processing by means of pairing objective performance feedback with a smiling or angry emotional facial expression displayed by a stranger (measured in all three age groups). The second task assessed the neural correlates of self- versus close other-representation through a positive versus negative adjective attribution task (measured in adolescents only). Finally, the third task looked at brain activity during passive viewing of self and mother pictures that were morphed into each other to different degrees (measured in children only). To assess inter-individual differences in attachment-derived IWMs, participants were asked to provide attachment self-reports using standardized and age-appropriate attachment questionnaires (Experiences in Close Relationships Revised [ECR-R] and ECR-R child version [ECR-RC]; Relationships Scales Questionnaire [RSQ]; Adult Attachment Questionnaire [AAQ]), which were analyzed dimensionally by generating one score for attachment avoidance (AV) and anxiety (AX) per participant.
Interestingly, for the social feedback processing task, our results revealed associations between inter-individual differences in attachment-derived IWMs and brain activity in adolescents and adults only – especially in the ventral anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, ventral striatum, and amygdala/hippocampus –, but not in children. Furthermore, the observed associations in adolescents were either congruent to age-related changes for AX, but incongruent in the case of AV. In the case of the adjective attribution task measured in adolescents, our findings disclosed relations between AX and both self- versus close other-representations in a network comprising bilateral amygdala/parahippocampus and anterior temporal pole/anterior superior temporal gyrus, plus left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, but in different directions. Finally, we also found associations between AX and brain activity during the viewing of self and mother pictures in children, namely in the left anterior temporal pole.
Taken together, our results show that attachment-derived IWMs are associated with brain activity during different social cognitive and emotional tasks already in children aged 8-12 years, and that these associations (especially regarding social feedback processing) differ as a function of age. Such pattern may suggest that IWMs differentially affect social cognitive versus affective neural processing, and that IWMs change over the course of development, as different mental representations and memories of social interactions are used to guide social emotional responsiveness.

Authors

• Pascal Vrticka, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
  Presenting Author

• Allan L Reiss, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, Stanford University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Martin Debbané, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva
  Non-Presenting Author