Developmental Plasticity in Early Adversity
Early relationships provide a major regulatory environment for the developing brain. We examine how maternal separation and altered early caregiving affect socio-emotional behaviour, executive function, attention and the maturation of frontolimbic circuits from infancy through early adulthood in human and nonhuman primates.
Longitudinal macaque studies compare mother-reared individuals with animals reared with same-age peers and subsequently housed in social groups. By integrating behavioural assessment, structural and diffusion MRI, and analyses of amygdala–prefrontal development, we investigate how early experience recalibrates developmental trajectories rather than producing a single static deficit.
Methods
- longitudinal mother-reared and peer-reared macaque comparisons; socio-emotional, attentional and executive-function assessment; structural and diffusion MRI; amygdala and prefrontal development analysis; amygdala–prefrontal connectivity analysis
Papers
| Reference | Topics | URL |
|---|---|---|
| Baker, M., Lindell, S. G., Driscoll, C. A., Zhou, Z., Yuan, Q., Schwandt, M. L., et al., & Ferrari, P. F. (2017). Early rearing history influences oxytocin receptor (OXTR) epigenetic regulation in rhesus macaques. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 114, 11769–11774. | Early rearing and OXTR epigenetic regulation. | |
| Festante, F., Rayson, H., Paukner, A., Kaburu, S. S. K., Toschi, G., Thorpe, S. G., Buchanan, R. W., Fox, N. A., & Ferrari, P. F. (2021). Oxytocin promotes prosocial behavior and related neural responses in infant macaques at-risk for compromised social development. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. | Oxytocin and early social-development risk. | DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2021.100950 |
| Rayson, H., Massera, A., Belluardo, M., Ben Hamed, S., & Ferrari, P. F. (2021). Early social adversity modulates the relation between attention biases and socioemotional behaviour in juvenile macaques. Scientific Reports, 11, 21704. | Attention and socio-emotional effects of adversity. | |
| Rayson, H., Szul, M. J., El-Khoueiry, P., Debnath, R., Gautier-Martins, M., Ferrari, P. F., Fox, N., & Bonaiuto, J. J. (2023). Bursting with Potential: How Sensorimotor Beta Bursts Develop from Infancy to Adulthood. Journal of Neuroscience, 43, 8487–8503. | Development of sensorimotor beta bursts. | |
| Massera, A., Rayson, H., Belluardo, M., Ben Hamed, S., & Ferrari, P. F. (2023). Longitudinal effects of early psychosocial deprivation on decision-making in juvenile macaques. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 290, 20221993. | Longitudinal effects of psychosocial deprivation. |