A multi-perspective on affective touch and attachment: C-Tactile afferents in early development

Description

In 1958 Harry Harlow set about trying to understand the mechanisms by which new-born rhesus monkeys bonded with their mothers. Interpreting their behavior, based solely on a prospective and observational approach, he posited that new-born infants had an innate drive for touch that went beyond the need to just obtain food. However, with no idea what the mechanism for this could be, he concluded that an amorphous construct he called ‘love’ was the primary driving force behind this need for physical closeness. Around the same time John Bowlby, in a series of seminal papers (1958 – 1960) and building on Harlow’s research, claimed that traditional psychoanalytic theory could not explain the attachment of infants and young children to their mother, nor their responses to being separated. This led him to develop his theory of attachment, emphasizing the role of close relationships in the early life of an infant. However, attachment theory remains work in progress as it still lacks an underpinning driving neurodevelopmental mechanism that fully explains the various attachment types described by Bowlby. There is a clue emerging from both Harlow’s and Bowlby’s research of a putative mechanism that could explain their theories of love or attachment - touch. It is now well recognized that a significant part of brain development is experience-dependent, with sensory inputs providing a key element of this experience, and for the infant the primary source of sensory input is social touch, now recognized as promoting both neuronal development and offspring-parent bonding. Although there are many other sensory inputs that may be contributing to development such as smell, hearing, nutrition etc., in this symposium we aim to focus on touch, showing that a relatively recently discovered population of gentle touch sensitive C-Tactile nerves may provide a neurobiological explanation for bonds between parents and infants.

Period	18 Jul 2023
Event title	18th World Association for Infant Mental Health World Congress
Event type	Conference
Location	Dublin, IrelandShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International