Skip Navigation



Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on September 11, 2008
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhn153
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
19/5/1124    most recent
bhn153v3
bhn153v2
bhn153v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Lenzi, D.
Right arrow Articles by Ammaniti, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Lenzi, D.
Right arrow Articles by Ammaniti, M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Neural Basis of Maternal Communication and Emotional Expression Processing during Infant Preverbal Stage

D. Lenzi1,2,3, C. Trentini4, P. Pantano1,2, E. Macaluso3, M. Iacoboni5, G.L. Lenzi1,2 and M. Ammaniti4

1 Department of Neurological Sciences, 2 Centro per lo Studio delle Funzioni Mentali dell'Uomo, ‘La Sapienza’ University of Rome, viale dell'Università 30, 00185 Rome, Italy, 3 Neuroimaging Laboratory, Fondazione Santa Lucia, via Ardeatina 306, 00147 Rome, Italy, 4 Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, ‘La Sapienza’ University of Rome, via dei Marsi 78, 00185 Italy, 5 Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 660 Charles E. Young Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90095-7085, USA

Address correspondence to Dr. D. Lenzi, Department of Neurological Sciences, ‘La Sapienza’ University of Rome, viale dell'Università 30, 00185 Rome, Italy. Email: delia.lenzi{at}gmail.com.

During the first year of life, exchanges and communication between a mother and her infant are exclusively preverbal and are based on the mother's ability to understand her infant's needs and feelings (i.e., empathy) and on imitation of the infant's facial expressions; this promotes a social dialog that influences the development of the infant self. Sixteen mothers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while observing and imitating faces of their own child and those of someone else's child. We found that the mirror neuron system, the insula and amygdala were more active during emotional expressions, that this circuit is engaged to a greater extent when interacting with one's own child, and that it is correlated with maternal reflective function (a measure of empathy). We also found, by comparing single emotions with each other, that joy expressions evoked a response mainly in right limbic and paralimbic areas; by contrast, ambiguous expressions elicited a response in left high order cognitive and motor areas, which might reflect cognitive effort.

Key Words: attachment • emotional expressions • empathy • mirror system • mother-child


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.