THE RELATION BETWEEN MATERNAL SENSITIVITY AND CORTICAL RESPONSE TO MATERNAL TOUCH: A FNIRS STUDY

• Grant number: 24/05978-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Effective date (Start): September 01, 2024
• Effective date (End): December 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Human Development Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Ana Alexandra Caldas Osório
• Grantee: Isabella Germinhasi Francischelli
• Supervisor: Adriana Sampaio
• Host Institution: Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação. Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (UPM). Instituto Presbiteriano Mackenzie. São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Universidade do Minho (UMinho), Portugal
• Associated to the scholarship: 23/09990-5 - Associations between maternal sensitivity and infants' neuronal responses to maternal touch, BP.MS

Abstract

Touch is one of the main forms of communication that babies establish with the world, especially during the mother-baby relationship. But, there are different tactiles stimuli and, therefore, diverse impacts on the development during the first year of life. The quality of this tactile stimuli can be expressed by maternal sensitivity. However, the literature is still scarce on this topic. A collaborative team found that, a decrease in sensitivity at 7 months is correlated with increased activation in the regions somatosensory and temporal responses to gentle strokes at 12 months on the shoulder blade (Mateus et al., 2021). The present study seeks to evaluate the association between maternal sensitivity and babies' neural response to maternal touch. In this longitudinal project, 55 babies and their mothers will be evaluated in two moments. At 6 months, maternal sensitivity will be coded using the Ainsworth Maternal Sensitivity Scale, applied to 9 minute episodes of mother-baby interaction. And by 10 months, babies' neural responses to maternal social touch will be collected using Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). Therefore, it is expected to expand understanding of the relationship between maternal behavior and the processing of social touch in infants.