W E I attachment here today. V It’s quite a short talk, so I decided to R talk about some of our recent research E ‘Children suffer… that’s on attachment, especially how adult T attachment representations are related

N to responses to infant crying and infant I what drives me’ laughter, and how that might be influenced by oxytocin. We are doing Marinus van IJzendoorn met Jon Sutton at the European Congress of a series of studies with oxytocin sniffs. and talked about his research on differential susceptibility in We’re interested in how people with a certain attachment style end up being harsh to their crying child, or remain calm and sensitive. Oxytocin might be one of the key issues in the chain from cognitive representations to behaviour. e’re here in Stockholm, where pointing to this idea, but it didn’t really WI think the popular idea of get a foothold? The idea being that it’s a kind of dandelion children – those with Well, their wonderful research prepared chemical spotlight, it makes social ‘resilient’ genes who will do well in the way for gene by environment cues more salient? most conditions – actually originated. interaction research more broadly. But Oxytocin is a hormone and The idea of dandelions and orchids their study is really firmly grounded in neurotransmitter that is still not really originates from Tom Boyce, he used the the tradition of diathesis-stress and determined in terms of its function. It’s metaphor. He might be a little distressed cumulative risk. being considered the ‘love hormone’, or because it’s taken too literally. I agree – the ‘cuddle chemical’, but again that’s these may not be two classes, but a So in people who did not face severe a one-sided view. What we are finding is continuum of more or less openness to or repeated stress, the risk alleles in that it lowers the activity of fear centres, the environment. question actually heightened resistance such as the amygdala, and elevates the to stress and depression. activity of reward centres, such as the Tell me how you came Carriers of risk alleles were more prone to orbito-frontal cortex and the anterior to it scientifically. develop, for example, anti-social cingulate cortex. But it is not effective We were the first to do genetic research behaviour or depression having grown up in all people – we find that those with on the idea of differential susceptibility. in a bad environment with lots of negative attachment experiences are less The idea was already around on a maltreatment experience. But the other open to the effects of oxytocin. How that theoretical level, for quite some time, and side of the equation, the bright side, Caspi comes about, that’s one of the big puzzles in fact was most active in the mid-1990s. and Moffit didn’t touch on. So absolutely we are working on now. The first studies were by Boyce and then groundbreaking Jay Belsky, but then it seemed to slow studies, because for A researcher once did down a lot. We were entering into the the first time in the the adult attachment field of genetics from the perspective of human development “there is a gap between interview on me, and , which is I think quite area they opened up brain and behaviour, which said I was the most logical because attachment theory is based the way of thinking is very intriguing” dismissively attached on evolutionary theory – it’s the first in terms of measured person they had met! evolutionary theory applied to human gene by observed What would you predict for development besides Charles Darwin environment interaction, but differential my reaction to oxytocin, and to my poor himself. was the first susceptibility is a two-sided crying children? evolutionary psychologist you might say, phenomenon – the same risk alleles Amazingly unscientific! The interview it’s now a very popular concept but he would also create more options to learn is not meant to conduct individual was the first to apply evolutionary from a positive environment. That’s quite diagnoses, errors of measurement simply thinking in a systematic way to human unique to the idea of differential forbid it. Well, what I’m going to present development. susceptibility and to the research that we is that without oxytocin, insecurely So my colleague Marian Bakermans- did in Leiden. attached adults feel firstly more irritated Kranenburg and I went into this area of by infant crying behaviour. Secondly we genetic research after having done twin And it was about that time that positive have a hand-grip measure, we teach the studies, and we found – by accident, in psychology was coming to the fore, so participants to exert full force and then a way – this interaction between DRD4, you were surfing the zeitgeist of we teach them to go for half-strength. a dopamine-related gene, and sensitivity looking on the bright side! They manage to do that. And then we to environmental influences on children, It might be that it’s not by accident – have them listen to cry sounds. Insecurely developing differentially positively or about that time more people started to attached individuals exert excessive force negatively. That got us on the way in do research on the positive side of more often than the securely attached a series of studies on differential development, but again one-sided studies, parents, when listening to this aversive susceptibility. of positive development in positive crying. environments. But it is the power of the Am I right in thinking that two idea of differential susceptibility, that it So that’s not necessarily expressing psychologists at King’s College London, covers both streams of research. anger, it could be discomfort, that they Caspi and Moffit, had raw data and find that more aversive. graphs in their 2002 and 2003 papers So tell me how you’re linking it with Yes, and what in practice the response

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would be. It could be an alarm signal that A lot of your research is still very to look after our children badly’. is more pronounced, it might also trigger hands on with children and parents In Scandinavia the parents really seem harsh . Crying behaviour is and behaviour, it’s important not to to have the choice to be at home, both primordial attachment behaviour, it’s one take it that level of abstraction too far. parents, to care for their infant in the first of the first behaviours that an infant can These are absolutely fantastic times to year of life. In the UK and other show to display discomfort, distress, study parenting, with big advances in countries, maternity and particularly stress… it’s a proximity seeking genetics, in brain research, in hormonal paternity leave is very brief, so people are behaviour, which John obliged to have other forms of care. Bowlby wrote about quite From the perspective of attachment extensively. But it’s also a theory there’s a misunderstanding trigger for harsh parenting around the concept of monotropy. and , an There’s lots of evidence that children epidemiological study showed are able to grow up in a network of that aversion to crying in the attachment relationships. Sarah Hrdy first half year is the stimulus has written about the survival value of for about 6 per cent of young alloparenting. It takes more than one mothers to slap the child, to person simply to collect all the food smother the child, to really go needed to have a child growing up to a into the direction of child reproductive age. You need a village to abuse. You might imagine raise a child. So nothing against more that it’s a powerful trigger, caretakers in the environment of the because persistent crying is child. The point is that in the first year really a nuisance, that’s for of life, children are easily overwhelmed sure, for any person, but some by all kinds of stimuli, they need more people might have a lower structure than older children. They are threshold to react in a harsh dependent on the moderation of stress way. What we see in the by persons in the environment that scanner is that listening to cry they can rely upon. Attachment figures sounds compared to control are in fact external stress moderators sounds elevates the level of for infants in the first year of life. amygdala activation, because Now if you put them into group it’s aversive, and oxytocin care, that’s really quite some stressful lowers that level of activation. experience. Some children won’t be What we hoped to find was bothered at all, depending on their that it’s a mediating temperament, but others will be. If mechanism between parents don’t have the choice of staying attachment representation at home, I think that’s bad, that’s not to those feelings of irritation Professor Marinus van IJzendoorn, Centre for Child and enough options for parents of and excessive force on the Family Studies, , The susceptible children who might need to hand grip. We didn’t find that, [email protected] be at home. so there is a gap between brain and behaviour, which is The ‘orchids’? very intriguing. Maybe, yes. So that’s what I find research. It all creates lots of opportunities distressing in the US, the UK, in Holland, So it’s not as simple as intervening on to look at the mechanisms, the processes that parents don’t have the freedom to that pathway with a sniff of oxytocin of how exactly parents are influencing choose. when your baby starts crying. children in their development, but we The second issue is of course quality Exactly. We can’t really connect the three should refrain from using those types of of care. You can have bad care in both parts of the equation to each other… devices for their own sake, because it’s family and daycare environments with that’s not unique to our lab, in the fMRI fancy, because it’s creating these nice detrimental effects on the most area the dominant paradigm is looking at pictures. It’s always a means to a goal and susceptible children. In Scandinavian the brain as a dependent variable, so what that goal is to understand better what countries they seem to have strong happens in the brain is the end product of happens between parents and children regulations, and monitoring of them, to a series of stimuli. For me this is totally and to know more about how to intervene keep quality of care high. That’s a lesson unimportant, because what happens in families with an environment that is we should learn. Young children are between your ears, no child or infant will not so great for the child to grow up in. worth this investment, according to ever see. What’s important is how specific economists like Heckman. brain activity is expressed in behaviour. In terms of creating positive I’m interested in parenting, in child environments, what do you think we You’ve researched a huge range of behaviour, I would like to know how can learn from the Scandinavians, topics, from the aftermath of genocide brain activation affects parenting style and given that we’re here in Sweden? In through sleeping children to adoption. how it’s made visible to the child, shaping the UK I think people look to here for What’s the common thread, what the course of development. That’s really an example of how it should be done; values drive you in that work? a big puzzle still, and not even addressed whereas in the UK some people say The most important perspective is the in a lot of the neuroscientific studies on ‘we go out to work and get paid badly influence of the environment, parenting parenting. so that we can pay other people badly and the family context on child

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.or g. uk 97 interview

development. You know of course the good enough’ environments around. But taking you next? book by Judith Harris, that parents are there are also a lot of children who are There’s distressingly little experimental not important at all because it’s all genes very open to environmental pressures, research done on gene by environment which drives development? There’s now these orchid children, who would really interactions. We were the first to do a a very popular book in Holland by Dick flourish in a better environment. That gene by environment experiment – Swaab called We Are Our Brains . So in the potential is going to be wasted if we feel changing the environment and seeing past 20 years we witness a very strong it’s only genes and brains that create how that interacts with genes. It’s so main current that defines child development. It’s a waste of talent, a waste much more powerful statistically. We development as a kind of autonomic of potential, if we are seduced by a have to work on better assessments of process driven by genes and brain deterministic view of child development. the environment, better assessments of structures, with only marginal influence Genes are important, but it’s the genotype (for example genetic pathways), for the environment – prenatally, maybe, interplay with the environment, and too but also better designs to be able to really but whether after birth the work is really often that’s lip service – on the part of test and examine differential susceptibility done, that’s what I doubt. those who study the genes, and on the and gene by environment interplay in general. So what we would like So you’re driven to counter that at a to do are large-scale experimental J I personal level as well as a scientific M studies in which we have a closer W

level? E look at the mechanism itself. We S T / Neglect of the environment is a big R plan to use fMRI as a pre- and E P O

misunderstanding and, in the end R post-test assessment, to see if T D I

children suffer… That’s what drives me. G differences in brain activation I T A

If you follow it through, with the brain L mediate the effects of our . C O .

as ultimate cause of any developmental U intervention on the behaviour of process, you can’t even criticise that K parents and children. It is trying children grow up in an orphanage to get a more detailed and environment. We did studies in mechanistic view of how orphanages in different parts of the world, interventions work more and what we see is that for every single effectively in certain subgroups month they stay in that environment of participants who are more open there is a bigger lag in their development to the environment. of weight, height and head circumference I think we’re going to continue compared to their peers growing up in our work with the oxytocin sniffs, families. Cognitive development goes into because it’s intriguing how it is the range of mental retardation. If they moderated by childhood are adopted, you see a tremendous catch- experiences. It’s still shown in up in cognitive development, IQ recovers only three or four experimental to a normal level, a difference of 15 –20 studies. This is shaky in terms of the IQ points. This would be hard to explain Potential is going to be wasted if we feel it’s assessment of childhood experiences, on the basis of genes and brains being the only genes and brains that create development so the first step will be to see how it causal drivers of development. is moderated by adult attachment representations, but it would be great That recovery, that resilience, brings part of those who study the environment. if we could also include it in longitudinal us back to the positive and negative You need a concept like differential studies where we may observe negative effects of the environment… it’s not susceptibility to study, in detail, the childhood experiences moderating the too late to intervene. interactions between the two facets. effects of oxytocin. Differential susceptibility theory makes clear that some children are quite robust, Have you had your own behavioural Is there a lot of funding in that area? it doesn’t matter too much what genes assayed, or would you not think We just received a seven million euro environment they’re raised in as long as that’s important because it all depends grant from the national science it meets minimum standards. That’s quite on the interplay anyway? foundation to conduct experimental hopeful because there’s quite a few ‘just These concepts, genes and environment, studies on differential susceptibility. But they all work on the level of samples, the pharmaceutical industry is not really they don’t work on the level of the interested in our oxytocin research. I just

g Bakermans-Kranenburg, M.J. & Van IJzendoorn,

n individual. It’s a misunderstanding if you read Ben Goldacre’s Bad Pharma and felt i M.H. (2011). Differential susceptibility to d feel one might predict the individual lucky that industry does not see any a rearing environment depending on e

r dopamine-related genes. Development and course of life on the basis of candidate profit in oxytocin. Maybe this is the Psychopathology, 23 , 39 –52. genes, one gene in more than 20,000, reason why published results of oxytocin Bakermans-Kranenburg, M.J. & Van IJzendoorn, without any insight into the studies are diverging and sometimes M.H. (2013). Sniffing around oxytocin. environment… but even if you had exact disappointing. Our recent meta-analysis Translational , 3 e258 . information about the environment past in Translational Psychiatry shows the doi:10.1038/tp.2013.34 and present, I still think on the individual problems of clinical applications of Van IJzendoorn, M.H. & Bakermans-Kranenburg, level prediction would be quite oxytocin. I love to do independent M.J. (2012). Differential susceptibility disappointing. research because it is difficult enough experiments: Going beyond correlational evidence. , 48 , without a big company looking over your 769 –774. Looking to your own future, can you shoulder and having an interest in the predict where this research path is outcome.

98 vol 27 no 2 february 2014 S w t o a r te k - sh o f o f- ro p th m e re - 2 p a 0 e r 1 a t 3 te 19-20 May 2014 d Best London Institute of Education Practices: University of London CBT for Depression & Suicide

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