Mother's presence impacts infants' brain development

A mother's presence can not only help soothe the pain of their distressed babies, but it may also impact early brain development by altering gene activity in a part of the brain involved in emotions, a research said.

"Our study shows that a mother comforting her infant in pain does not just elicit a behavioural response, but also the comforting itself modifies - for better or worse - critical neural circuitry during early brain development," said senior study investigator Regina Sullivan, professor at the New York University School of Medicine.

For the study, researchers performed genetic analyses on tissue from the almond-sized amygdala region of the infant rat pups' brains that is responsible for processing emotions such as fear and pleasure.

The researchers found that several hundred genes were more or less active in rat infants experiencing pain than in those that were not.

With their mothers present, however, fewer than 100 genes were similarly expressed.

The findings shed insight on the complexity of treating pain in newborns.

The findings were presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington DC Nov 18.