<p>In this <a href="https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/articles/the-neurobiology-of-stress-with-professor-michael-meaney-323347" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Michael Meaney interview</a>, he let an open question at the end. He mentioned that communal parenting, could &quot;<em>in some ways buffer the child by having potentially more positive sources of resilience in their lives</em>&quot;. I know the <em>amygdala</em> and <em>medial prefrontal cortex</em> are brain regions important for emotion regulation, however, how communal parenting could change their development and be an explanation for this to happen?</p>
<p>This is the interview last question (to avoid the link):</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Interviewer</strong>: Have there been studies of the influence of care
in societies where the burden of care might be moved between parents
or is it reasonably constant across societies?</p>
<p><strong>Michael Meaney</strong>: <em>No. We think it’s really interesting and it’s a dynamic. The psychologists speak, for example, of a child as being an
organism that’s remarkably good at seeking out nurturance from
whatever source may be there.  We see in Asia that many children are
raised by grandparents or in a more communal environment. In a cohort
that we run in Singapore, I believe that in 50% of the cases the
mother is not the primary care giver in terms of the person who spends
the most amount of time with the child.  That wouldn’t be true up to
one year of life, but beyond one year it’s very often that children
are raised by others, particularly grandparents. People are living in
larger, extended families. The irony there is that these care
structures may come closer to the original organization of the family
who lived in kin groups. In fact, it may be that we in the west are
somehow the outliers having created these nuclear families in which
parenting and child care is so closely linked to one or two
individuals whereas in other societies it can be far more communal.
That leads you to some interesting outcomes. For example, a colleague
of ours in Singapore was looking at the association between a common
feature of early maternal care, which is sensitivity – to what extent
is the mother attuned to the cues of the infant? She had a predicted a
relationship between development in the prefrontal cortex and maternal
sensitivity.  She’s seen a rather weak relationship, which surprised
her, so she took this large sample she had and she split it and for
those whom the mother was the primary care giver, she saw a very
strong relationship between maternal sensitivity and prefrontal
development, but for those children for whom the mother wasn’t the
primary caregiver, it was absent.</em>  <em><strong>So I think in these particular
instances, you’re seeing more diversity within the child care
environment and I think it’s an excellent question to ask, does this
in some ways buffer the child by having potentially more positive
sources of resilience in their lives?  It’s a question well worth
noting</strong></em>.</p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-07-20T16:18:21.970Z
I don't think he's saying exactly that.  He's saying that research has established a strong connection between primary caregiver sensitivity and prefrontal cortex development (presumably leading to emotional resilience later in life).  He then asks if having multiple caregivers may increase the chance that at least one of them is high in sensitivity, leading to a greater chance of prefrontal development (and hence greater resilience).
Arnon Weinberg
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-07-22T20:21:12.990Z
@ArnonWeinberg I got your point. Didn't thought that way. I believed that the caregiver time was distributed, not shared, and because the mother sensitivity was not necessarily correlated in those cases, I was thinking more in an average sensitivity between caregivers instead in the better one between all them. Thanks for your insight.
Leopoldo Sanczyk
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-08-05T22:51:11.173Z
Closing as [answered in comments](https://psychology.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2163/7001).
Arnon Weinberg
<cognitive-neuroscience><emotion><brain-development><parenting>
How communal parenting, through the develpment in the prefrontal cortex, could lead to a better emotion regulation?
Leopoldo Sanczyk
# How communal parenting, through the develpment in the prefrontal cortex, could lead to a better emotion regulation?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-07-17)

In this [Michael Meaney interview](https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/articles/the-neurobiology-of-stress-with-professor-michael-meaney-323347), he let an open question at the end. He mentioned that communal parenting, could "*in some ways buffer the child by having potentially more positive sources of resilience in their lives*". I know the *amygdala* and *medial prefrontal cortex* are brain regions important for emotion regulation, however, how communal parenting could change their development and be an explanation for this to happen?

This is the interview last question (to avoid the link):

> **Interviewer**: Have there been studies of the influence of care
> in societies where the burden of care might be moved between parents
> or is it reasonably constant across societies?
>
> **Michael Meaney**: *No. We think it’s really interesting and it’s a dynamic. The psychologists speak, for example, of a child as being an
> organism that’s remarkably good at seeking out nurturance from
> whatever source may be there. We see in Asia that many children are
> raised by grandparents or in a more communal environment. In a cohort
> that we run in Singapore, I believe that in 50% of the cases the
> mother is not the primary care giver in terms of the person who spends
> the most amount of time with the child. That wouldn’t be true up to
> one year of life, but beyond one year it’s very often that children
> are raised by others, particularly grandparents. People are living in
> larger, extended families. The irony there is that these care
> structures may come closer to the original organization of the family
> who lived in kin groups. In fact, it may be that we in the west are
> somehow the outliers having created these nuclear families in which
> parenting and child care is so closely linked to one or two
> individuals whereas in other societies it can be far more communal.
> That leads you to some interesting outcomes. For example, a colleague
> of ours in Singapore was looking at the association between a common
> feature of early maternal care, which is sensitivity – to what extent
> is the mother attuned to the cues of the infant? She had a predicted a
> relationship between development in the prefrontal cortex and maternal
> sensitivity. She’s seen a rather weak relationship, which surprised
> her, so she took this large sample she had and she split it and for
> those whom the mother was the primary care giver, she saw a very
> strong relationship between maternal sensitivity and prefrontal
> development, but for those children for whom the mother wasn’t the
> primary caregiver, it was absent.* ***So I think in these particular
> instances, you’re seeing more diversity within the child care
> environment and I think it’s an excellent question to ask, does this
> in some ways buffer the child by having potentially more positive
> sources of resilience in their lives? It’s a question well worth
> noting***.

**Tags:** cognitive-neuroscience, emotion, brain-development, parenting

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I don't think he's saying exactly that.  He's saying that research has established a strong connection between primary caregiver sensitivity and prefrontal cortex development (presumably leading to emotional resilience later in life).  He then asks if having multiple caregivers may increase the chance that at least one of them is high in sensitivity, leading to a greater chance of prefrontal development (and hence greater resilience).  
> **username_0**: @ArnonWeinberg I got your point. Didn't thought that way. I believed that the caregiver time was distributed, not shared, and because the mother sensitivity was not necessarily correlated in those cases, I was thinking more in an average sensitivity between caregivers instead in the better one between all them. Thanks for your insight.  
> **username_1**: Closing as [answered in comments](https://psychology.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2163/7001).  

---

## 0 answers

