Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts.
—William Shakespeare
NOW THAT WE’VE EXPLORED THE EVOLUTION OF the social brain and our interconnection with others—from caretakers to family, tribes, and community—we turn our focus to the ways we attach and stay connected. As social animals, our brains are built through reciprocal interactions across the social synapse. Being a member of a complex society requires a brain equipped to process a vast amount of social information and adapt to a changing constellation of relationships. Nurturing, caretaking, and playing all trigger a symphony of processes that promote health and well-being. For humans, relationships are our most important habitat.
We begin life with the task of getting to know those around us. This is why newborns come equipped with an array of reflexes designed to help them bond, attach, and communicate their needs. These reflexes (such as grasping, crying, and smiling) trigger caretaking instincts in parents that start the dance of attachment. During the early months and years of life, the neural circuits of the social brain are built through experience. This means that the chemistry and anatomy of the brain are shaped by the child’s interaction with caretakers. These networks remain adaptable throughout life and are the same structures that adults rely on to nurture one another, be good parents and grandparents, and make new friends later in life.
From the first moments of life, we learn about the world through the attention and care we receive. The availability and quality of early caretaking shape our brains, and with sufficient nurturance, attention, and care, set us on a course for psychological and physical health. As we grow, our brains convert these experiences into biological processes that influence the ways in which we relate to others, the feelings we have about ourselves, and our implicit expectations for the future. How we bond and stay attached to others is at the core of our resilience, self-esteem, and physical health.
ATTACHMENT
Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
Robert Frost
Attachment is a general term used to describe the physical and emotional connections that link us to one another. And although attachments to our children, spouse, family, and friends are all somewhat different, they depend upon common biological processes that make us feel good when we are together and anxious or lonely when we are apart. Although usually studied in the context of parent-child relationships, an array of attachments are important for all of us throughout life. When a woman holds her great-grandchild, each is stimulating the other’s brain to release chemicals that enhance well-being, support neural growth, and improve immunological functioning. Similar biological processes can become activated among members of a combat troop, a church choir, a sports team, or a study group. Attachments in all forms have their evolutionary roots in the bond between mother and child.
Attention to human attachment began with the psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who first noticed the similarities of interaction among humans and primate mother-child pairs. It became clear to him that primate children thrive under the care of attentive, loving, consistently available adults. As he observed the delicate balance between physical contact and exploration, he developed the concept of the parent as a secure base for a child’s exploration of the world. Bowlby also noted that when children become stressed or uncertain, they engage in proximity seeking by returning to their parent until they once again feel safe to explore again. And finally, he believed that early caretaking experiences resulted in an attachment schema, which is the child’s unconscious expectations of others’ abilities to make him or her feel safe.
Bowlby’s observations and ideas were taken up by generations of researchers who studied attachment through in-home observations and experiments with mothers and children. Attachment schemas in young children are measured by observing children’s reactions to stressful situations and how they use their parents to regulate their fear and anxiety. Under stress, securely attached children go to their parents, interact with them for a while, and then resume exploration and play. Insecurely attached children become overly clingy, avoid their parents completely, or even engage in odd behaviors such as spinning, hitting their heads, or falling to the ground. Bowlby’s work and the research he inspired uncovered connections between early attachment experiences and well-being in adulthood. It also demonstrated the importance of consistent caretakers and physical contact for children in hospitals and orphanages.1
Attachment schema are thought to be unconscious memories of our experiences in early relationships that stay with us for the rest of our lives. They impact our development, the quality of our relationships, and our ability to regulate our emotions. Securely attached children seem to internalize their parents as sources of inner comfort.2 The resulting states of mind, brain, and body serve as a secure emotional base from which to establish future positive relationships.
LOVE BECOMES FLESH
The meeting of two personalities is like contact of two chemical substances: If there is any reaction, both are transformed.
Carl Jung
In recent years, Bowlby’s conception of attachment has crossed over into the biological sciences. Research has focused on the influence of interpersonal experience on the shaping of neurological structures and biological processes involved in emotional regulation, learning, and bodily health.3 The emerging field of epigenetics, which studies how experience influences genetic expression, is giving us new tools to understand how love becomes flesh. Particular attachment behaviors have been found to parallel structural and metabolic processes that can be measured in levels of neurochemicals, neural connectivity, and patterns of brain activation.
The structures and regulation of these systems become established early in life and organize enduring patterns of arousal, reactivity to stress, and interpersonal behavior. Secure attachments have been found to build the brain in ways that optimize emotional regulation, learning, and resilience. Insecure attachment builds brains that are vulnerable to stress, makes learning more difficult, and correlates with poor coping abilities. Fortunately, ongoing neural plasticity throughout life allows us opportunities to alter these networks by engaging in positive relationships with caring others.
We now have a biological as well as psychological understanding of why those of us who grow up in a safe and loving environment tend to be happier and healthier adults. The psychological explanation is that early relationships teach us that we are valuable and loved and that the world is a safe place. The biological explanation lies in the construction and regulation of multiple social and emotional brain systems that support resilience.
But what are these structures and systems and how do parents and grandparents support their development via nurturing relationships? A number of brain systems have been identified as being experience dependent; that is, they require positive human interactions for optimal development. Table 2.1 contains a list of some of the neural networks and biological systems that are shaped by early caretaking experiences.
Table 2.1. Experience-Dependent Social Brain Systems
Attachment System: Orbitomedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, cingulate, insula, spindle cells, and mirror neurons
Social Engagement System: Development of the “smart vagus,” which fine tuned our level of arousal to match situations
Social Motivation System: Development of social reinforcement and regulation via oxytocin, testosterone, vasopressin, and dopamine
Stress Regulation System: Benzodiazepine and endorphin receptors in the amygdala and locus coeruleus and cortisol receptors in the hippocampus
Although our understanding of these processes is still at an early stage, we are beginning to get a sense of how the sculpting of these brain systems during early experiences influences our functioning throughout life. By extension, it is through the ongoing stimulation of these circuits that we stay healthy, vibrant, and alive. Let’s take a brief look at a few of the most important social brain systems. As you read through them, keep in mind that they are both interwoven and interdependent on one another. If you find that you would like to explore the social brain in more depth, please refer to my book The Neuroscience of Human Relationships.4
The Attachment System
An important component of our social brains is a portion of the prefrontal cortex that lies above and between our eyes called the orbital-medial prefrontal cortex (OMPFC). This is the first region of the prefrontal lobe to develop during childhood because learning how to connect to those around us is our first order of business.
Richly connected with core networks of learning, memory, and emotion, the OMPFC organizes our attachment schemas, emotional regulation, and ability to cope with stress.5 These networks are built during childhood via physical contact and emotional attunement between parent and child, facilitating our lifelong connection with others.
Although we usually think of the cortex as directing our thinking and behavior, one of its primary jobs is to inhibit and regulate more primitive, basic impulses and emotions. The OMPFC plays this kind of regulatory role with the amygdala. The amygdala is in charge of activating our fear response and is fully developed by about 8 months of pregnancy. The OMPFC allows us to learn to be soothed by others early in life and later by our own thoughts, memories, and behaviors. The attachment behaviors described by Bowlby reflect the OMPFC’s ability to modulate fear activation in the amygdala. One way to think of secure attachment is that the OMPFC has successfully learned to modulate the amygdala.
The cingulate cortex, contiguous to the OMPFC, evolved in mammals with the appearance of maternal behavior, nursing, social communication, and play. The cingulate cortex also contains spindle cells, which connect diverse areas of the brain that are involved in bonding and self-awareness.6 Adjacent to both the OMPFC and the anterior cingulate, the insular cortex is involved in the integration of cognitive and emotional processing and mediates emotions, from pain to disgust to love.7 Both the cingulate and insula become activated when we, or those we love, experience physical pain and other emotions. The degree of activation of the cingulate and insular cortexes have been shown to correlate with our awareness of our inner emotional states as well as the amount of attunement and empathy we experience with others.8 The same neural networks involved in connecting with others also serve our ability to connect to ourselves.
Our best guess is that attachment schemas reflect the learning histories that shape the interconnections among all of these structures, especially the OMPFC and the amygdala. These cortical structures give input to, guide, and regulate the amygdala’s level of activation in different situations; in other words, when we should experience fear. At their core, attachment schemas reflect our ability to use our proximity to others to regulate fear and anxiety.
Mirror neurons also play an important role in attachment by automatically connecting our actions to those of others through imitation and creating internal models of others’ experiences. Have you ever started to laugh because you found someone else’s laugh infectious? How about looking up or yawning because others were doing so? These are examples of mirror neurons at work. Mirror neurons are active in the first few days of life, allowing newborns to imitate the facial gestures (like smiling, opening their mouths, or sticking their tongues out) of their parents. They allow us to learn by watching others perform a task and resonating with their emotions.
The Social Engagement System
While the basic flight-fight reaction to fear is an adequate defensive strategy for nonsocial animals, caretaking, cooperation, and sustained relationships require a volume control instead of an on-off switch. We have to stay in proximity to others, and not harm or flee from those we love, even when we are upset. Thus, in addition to the attachment system, natural selection also shaped the social engagement system or the smart vagus.9 Connecting the brain with the heart, lungs, and facial muscles (among other structures), the complex nerves that make up the vagal system allow us to modulate bodily and emotional reactions in a prosocial manner.
The tone of the vagus refers to the system’s ability to regulate levels of arousal, including activity in our bodily organs, especially the heart. Children with poor vagal tone have difficulty regulating their emotions in stressful situations, making it difficult for them to maintain attention and sustain a shared focus of attention with others. As adults, good vagal tone allows us to become upset, anxious, or angry with loved ones without withdrawing or becoming physically aggressive.
The Social Motivation System
The social motivation system includes the neurochemicals that draw us to one another and regulate behavior such as pair bonding, social dominance, and caretaking. The most primitive neurochemicals involved in social motivation are oxytocin and vasopressin, which are associated with mating, reproduction, and caretaking. During attachment, initial bonding is driven by oxytocin and vasopressin in both mother and child. As we grow, dopamine and norepinephrine associate social interactions with feelings of happiness and excitement.
When a mother and child are separated, oxytocin levels plummet in both of them, causing distress. Interacting with his newborn results in lower levels of testosterone in the father, making him calmer and less aggressive. Over time, secure attachment schemas are shaped by the long series of positive experiences stored in attachment circuitry and a complex activations of these social neurochemicals. Later in life, positive relationships, and even the thought of the people we love, come to regulate the activation of this rewarding biochemistry.10
The Stress Regulation System
The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is the central communication system involved in the body’s response to stress. It also converts the perception of danger into hormonal messengers that activate the body’s fight-flight reaction. This system evolved to respond to brief stress and then quickly return to homeostasis. In conditions of chronic stress, the HPA system stays activated and can damage the body and the brain by sustaining high levels of cortisol.
Chronically high levels of cortisol inhibit the protein synthesis necessary for neuronal maintenance, brain building, learning, and proper immunological functioning. Because relationships regulate HPA activation, the calmer, safer, and more supportive our social world, the better regulated our stress-response system. This may be the key explanation for why those with more positive relationships learn better, stay healthier, and live longer.
Much research suggests that genes serve as templates to organize the general structure of the brain and trigger sensitive periods of development. As we develop, the epigenetic process called transcription translates our experience into neural material, allowing us to adapt to our particular environment. Through the biochemical alchemy of template and transcription genetics, experience becomes flesh, love takes material form, and our relationships with others become a part of our inner worlds.
THE SURVIVAL OF THE NURTURED AND THE NURTURING
Grandchildren are God’s way of compensating us for growing old.
Mary H. Waldrip
Today, it is obvious that children need to be held, talked to, and loved. Not very long ago, even doctors thought relationships to be superfluous to our well-being. For example, in an effort to keep children from contracting and spreading disease, doctors at orphanages ordered children to be separated from one another, and direct contact with nursing and other staff was kept to an absolute minimum. While fewer children died of infectious diseases, the death rate remained so high that, for the sake of efficiency, doctors signed death certificates along with admission forms when children first arrived. This is one of the costs of thinking of humans as separate beings instead of seeing them as embedded within relationships.
In the years that followed, loss of vitality seen in orphaned and abandoned children came to be labeled as depression, hospitalism, or failure to thrive. It was observed in London orphanages during World War II and in American hospitals where parents were limited to visiting their children one hour per week during long hospital stays. A more severe form of the same phenomenon occurred more recently in Romanian orphanages. It is now obvious that children rely on interactions not only to build their brains but for their very survival.
A half century ago, a theory of aging known as disengagement suggested that older people naturally withdraw from their social network as they prepare to die.11 We now understand that the need for positive attachment and meaningful interactions doesn’t fade with age. A wealth of data links the amount and quality of social support to better physical and emotional health at any age. The dawning awareness of the importance of attachment in early childhood has been a century-long revelation, yet we often remain blind to its importance later in life.
Attachment is a lifelong process of engagement and reengagement as we adapt to changing roles, situations, and social resources. Those who make a greater social investment receive enhanced well-being in return. Building young brains and sustaining older ones through bonding and attachment is a naturally occurring reciprocal exchange in our social economy.
PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS
Second thoughts are ever wiser.
Euripides
Parents and grandparents begin to forge a relationship with the next generation from the moment of conception. Early pulses of attachment are triggered by grainy ultrasound images, fantasies about what the baby will look like, and the kicks and tugs of prenatal exercise. After birth, shared sights, sounds, and smells deepen bonds as parents, grandparents, and children become woven together into a superorganism called the family. These powerful visceral, sensory, and emotional connections serve as the core of lifelong attachments as our brains take in those closest to us as parts of ourselves. The tight swaddling of infancy slowly transforms into preschool and playdates, school trips and sleepovers, handing over the keys to the car, and eventually helping our offspring move into homes of their own. During this decades-long process, an ever-present dialogue between children and their family members creates narratives that help them find meaning in life.
Parents and grandparents often find themselves at odds. Some think parenting is teaching a set of rules that will help children to succeed in society, while others say it is an exercise in indulgence where children make the rules to which parents adapt. No matter where you fall between these two extremes, parenting is a constant challenge. We have to simultaneously socialize our children while encouraging their individuality, and provide structure and rules while being loving and playful. Children need to be allowed to express their feelings, be helped to put them into words, and create a story of their experiences.
Getting to know another person well, especially our own children, can be a real challenge. Sure, we can know someone’s likes and dislikes; we might even get good at guessing what they might be feeling. But ultimately, everything we know about someone else is influenced by our own needs and personal biases, some conscious, most not. With strangers, obvious differences and clear boundaries serve as reminders that we need to be wary of our assumptions, but with someone as close as our own children, boundaries usually blur. Young parents may have an especially difficult time discovering where they end and their children begin.
Our unconscious conflicts and needs seem to project most powerfully onto those in whom we have our largest emotional investments, especially our children and grandchildren. As living extensions of our bodies, hearts, and egos, they activate our fears and fantasies and stir up our inner demons. It can take years for parents to realize that their children are separate individuals with their own strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, and hopes and dreams.
All too often, I’ve seen parents damage or destroy relationships with their children because they cannot fully accept that they are separate and unique individuals. So when I am asked to offer my “expert” opinion on parenting, I usually respond, “After giving them as much love as you can, you need to remember that your children are not you. Each of us is an experiment of nature that needs to discover its own expression. As parents, our job is to help our children by providing them with the emotional and material resources that allow them to discover themselves.” Easier said than done.
We often bring the pain, fear, and trauma of our youth into our relationships with others, especially our children. There are situations in which our own childhoods can interfere with parenting and where the mitigating presence of grandparents and other wise, caring elders can be especially important. The fact that the construction of the human brain is shaped by social relationships has widespread implications. My hope is that as the evidence of the impact of early experience mounts, it will become clear that we need to invest more in our children and our children’s children. I suspect that this growth in awareness will accompany a parallel appreciation for the need to keep people of all ages connected for the benefit of elders, children, and those in between.