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Why are boys at risk? To address this question, I use the perspective of regulation theory to offer a model of the deeper psychoneurobiological mechanisms that underlie the vulnerability of the developing male. The central thesis of this work dictates that significant gender differences are seen between male and female social and emotional functions in the earliest stages of development, and that these result from not only differences in sex hormones and social experiences but also in rates of male and female brain maturation, specifically in the early developing right brain. I present interdisciplinary research which indicates that the stress-regulating circuits of the male brain mature more slowly than those of the female in the prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal critical periods, and that this differential structural maturation is reflected in normal gender differences in right-brain attachment functions. Due to this maturational delay, developing males also are more vulnerable over a longer period of time to stressors in the social environment (attachment trauma) and toxins in the physical environment (endocrine disruptors) that negatively impact right-brain development. In terms of differences in gender-related psychopathology, I describe the early developmental neuroendocrinological and neurobiological mechanisms that are involved in the increased vulnerability of males to autism, early onset schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and conduct disorders as well as the epigenetic mechanisms that can account for the recent widespread increase of these disorders in U.S. culture. I also offer a clinical formulation of early assessments of boys at risk, discuss the impact of early childcare on male psychopathogenesis, and end with a neurobiological model of optimal adult male socioemotional functions., (© 2017 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

This article discusses how recent studies of the right brain, which is dominant for the implicit, nonverbal, intuitive, holistic processing of emotional information and social interactions, can elucidate the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie the relational foundations of psychotherapy. Utilizing the interpersonal neurobiological perspective of regulation theory, I describe the fundamental role of the early developing right brain in relational processes, throughout the life span. I present interdisciplinary evidence documenting right brain functions in early attachment processes, in emotional communications within the therapeutic alliance, in mutual therapeutic enactments, and in therapeutic change processes. This work highlights the fact that the current emphasis on relational processes is shared by, cross-fertilizing, and indeed transforming both psychology and neuroscience, with important consequences for clinical psychological models of psychotherapeutic change., (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.)

Objective: This review integrates recent advances in attachment theory, affective neuroscience, developmental stress research, and infant psychiatry in order to delineate the developmental precursors of posttraumatic stress disorder., Method: Existing attachment, stress physiology, trauma, and neuroscience literatures were collected using Index Medicus/Medline and Psychological Abstracts. This converging interdisciplinary data was used as a theoretical base for modelling the effects of early relational trauma on the developing central and autonomic nervous system activities that drive attachment functions., Results: Current trends that integrate neuropsychiatry, infant psychiatry, and clinical psychiatry are generating more powerful models of the early genesis of a predisposition to psychiatric disorders, including PTSD. Data are presented which suggest that traumatic attachments, expressed in episodes of hyperarousal and dissociation, are imprinted into the developing limbic and autonomic nervous systems of the early maturing right brain. These enduring structural changes lead to the inefficient stress coping mechanisms that lie at the core of infant, child, and adult posttraumatic stress disorders., Conclusions: Disorganised-disoriented insecure attachment, a pattern common in infants abused in the first 2 years of life, is psychologically manifest as an inability to generate a coherent strategy for coping with relational stress. Early abuse negatively impacts the developmental trajectory of the right brain, dominant for attachment, affect regulation, and stress modulation, thereby setting a template for the coping deficits of both mind and body that characterise PTSD symptomatology. These data suggest that early intervention programs can significantly alter the intergenerational transmission of posttraumatic stress disorders.

A primary interest of the field of infant mental health is in the early conditions that place infants at risk for less than optimal development. The fundamental problem of what constitutes normal and abnormal development is now a focus of developmental psychology, infant psychiatry, and developmental neuroscience. In the second part of this sequential work, I present interdisciplinary data to more deeply forge the theoretical links between severe attachment failures, impairments of the early development of the right brain's stress coping systems, and maladaptive infant mental health. In the following, I offer thoughts on the negative impact of traumatic attachments on brain development and infant mental health, the neurobiology of infant trauma, the neuropsychology of a disorganized/disoriented attachment pattern associated with abuse and neglect, trauma-induced impairments of a regulatory system in the orbitofrontal cortex, the links between orbitofrontal dysfunction and a predisposition to posttraumatic stress disorders, the neurobiology of the dissociative defense, the etiology of dissociation and body–mind psychopathology, the effects of early relational trauma on enduring right hemispheric function, and some implications for models of early intervention. These findings suggest direct connections between traumatic attachment, inefficient right brain regulatory functions, and both maladaptive infant and adult mental health. ©2001 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]