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Human amygdala development in the absence of species‐expected caregiving
Author(s) -
Tottenham Nim
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
developmental psychobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1098-2302
pISSN - 0012-1630
DOI - 10.1002/dev.20531
Subject(s) - altricial , amygdala , psychology , developmental psychology , argument (complex analysis) , human development (humanity) , neuroscience , medicine , biology , ecology , political science , law
Abstract In altricial species, like the human, caregiver presence is necessary for typical emotional development. Children who have been raised in institutional care early in life experience caregiver deprivation and are at significantly elevated risk for emotional difficulties. The current manuscript examines the non‐human and human literatures on amygdala development following caregiver deprivation and presents an argument that in the absence of the species‐expected caregiver presence, human amygdala development exhibits rapid development and perhaps premature engagement that results in some of the emotional phenotypes observed following early institutional care. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals,Inc. Dev Psychobiol 54: 598–611, 2012.