About this Research Topic
Parental care that is attuned to the needs of the offspring is considered essential for healthy development and wellbeing in mammals. New parents undergo unique brain adaptations that allow for unprecedented flexibility to adapt behavior to the ever-changing needs of their offspring. The transition into, and the experience of, parenthood are associated with significant structural and functional plasticity in distributed brain circuits underlying processes of perception, motivation, affect, and cognition. The interplay among these processes depends on the action of various hormones and neurotransmitters that coordinate contingent caregiving to attend to the young's needs, developmental stage, and affect.
The goal of this Research Topic is to showcase recent research as well as offer new insights into the brain mechanisms that allow parents to flexibly couple appropriate caregiving with the needs of the young. This parental ability to link sensory cues to the underlying needs of the young and attune caregiving to match such needs is critical for the developmental outcome of the young, and can be severely compromised by neuropsychiatric disorders. It is essential to define and characterize the neurobiology supporting this parental capacity for social understanding. Gaining this knowledge will not only be essential to our understanding of how parents parent, but also may provide crucial insights into the neural dysfunctions involved in parental neglect and potentially develop strategies to prevent it.
We welcome work in all animal species, including humans, as original research articles, opinions, reviews and clinical trials that explore and highlight the neurobiological mechanisms that enable parents to contingently respond to their young.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Neuroplasticity in parental neural circuitry development and function.
- Molecular modulation of contingent parenting.
- Hormonal and neurochemical modulation of the parental circuitry.
- Cognitive, motivational and affective modulation of parenting.
- Neurobiology of parenting disturbances associated with neuropsychiatric disorders.
The goal of this Research Topic is to showcase recent research as well as offer new insights into the brain mechanisms that allow parents to flexibly couple appropriate caregiving with the needs of the young. This parental ability to link sensory cues to the underlying needs of the young and attune caregiving to match such needs is critical for the developmental outcome of the young, and can be severely compromised by neuropsychiatric disorders. It is essential to define and characterize the neurobiology supporting this parental capacity for social understanding. Gaining this knowledge will not only be essential to our understanding of how parents parent, but also may provide crucial insights into the neural dysfunctions involved in parental neglect and potentially develop strategies to prevent it.
We welcome work in all animal species, including humans, as original research articles, opinions, reviews and clinical trials that explore and highlight the neurobiological mechanisms that enable parents to contingently respond to their young.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Neuroplasticity in parental neural circuitry development and function.
- Molecular modulation of contingent parenting.
- Hormonal and neurochemical modulation of the parental circuitry.
- Cognitive, motivational and affective modulation of parenting.
- Neurobiology of parenting disturbances associated with neuropsychiatric disorders.
Keywords: Parenting, Social Understanding, Neuroplasticity, Parental Mental Health, Parental Neuropsychiatric Disorders
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
