The impact of out-of-home care on brain development: a brief review of the neuroscientific evidence informing our understanding of children’s attachment outcomes

TL;DR

This paper reviews how out-of-home care affects brain development and children's attachment outcomes based on neuroscientific evidence.

Contribution

The paper provides a focused review of neuroscientific findings on caregiving deprivation and attachment outcomes in children in care.

Findings

Caregiving adversity leads to structural and functional brain changes.

Neuroimaging shows links between neural markers and attachment profiles in looked-after children.

Research on social stimuli processing in this population is limited but consistent.

Abstract

Researchers interested in the effects of early experiences of caregiving adversity have employed neuroscientific methods to illuminate whether and how such environmental input impacts on brain development, and whether and how such impacts underpin poor socioemotional outcomes in this population. Evidence is compelling in documenting negative effects on the individual’s neurodevelopment following exposure to adverse or disadvantaged environments such as institutionalization or maltreatment. Neuroimaging research focused specifically on attachment-relevant processing of socioemotional stimuli and attachment outcomes among children looked-after is scarcer, but largely consistent. This review begins by summarizing the key general brain structural and functional alterations associated with caregiving deprivation. Then, neuroscientific evidence that is more directly relevant for understanding these children’s attachment outcomes, both by employing social stimuli and by correlating children’s neural markers with their attachment profiles, is reviewed. Brief interpretations of findings are suggested, and key limitations and gaps in the literature identified.