Maternal touch and infant neural activation to touch: relationship with emotion regulation during the first year of life

• Grant number: 23/04392-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: August 01, 2023
• End date: January 29, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Human Development Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Ana Alexandra Caldas Osório
• Grantee: Lívia Branco Campos
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde (CCBS). Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (UPM). Instituto Presbiteriano Mackenzie. São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/06693-4 - The importance of social touch for infant social-emotional development: integrating neuroimaging, psychophysiological, endocrine, and behavioral evidence, AP.JP2
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/08831-3 - Maternal touch and its associations with neural processing of tactile stimulation during the first year of life: an fNIRS study, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

Emotional Regulation (ER) is the ability to modulate emotional activation. Despite of that, the role of maternal touch to adaptative ER is underexplored by literature. There is evidence about the relationship between affective touch and ER, but little is known about what factors influence this relation, namely - what is the role of neural activation to affective touch. It's aimed to analyze the predictive role of 1) quality of maternal touch regarding the patters of infant's neuro activation to this type of touch; 2) quality of maternal touch regarding infant's ER and, finally, 3) the mediating role of infant's neural responsiveness to touch in the relation between quality of maternal touch behaviors and infant's ER. For this, 55 infants and their mothers will be evaluated longitudinally in three moments, at 6 months, when maternal touching behavioral will be accessed, at 10 months when infant's neural responses will be evaluated and at 12 months to evaluate ER. Is expected that the present study enlightens the role of neural response on the relationship between the infant is touched and their response to stressful situations. (AU)