Читать книгу Developmental Psychopathology - Группа авторов - Страница 114

Like with genes, there is no “attachment circuit” explicitly defined in the brain. Attachment behaviors have complex relations to neuroanatomy, and, thus, many brain regions are implicated. Nonetheless, a few brain structures and circuits implicated in threat detection and regulating experienced emotions are particularly important, such as the amygdala, the hypothalamus, and other structures included in the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenocortical (HPA) axis. Indeed, studies have linked greater activation in the amygdala to the telling of attachment stories that contain themes of loss, death, abuse, or abandonment (Buchheum et al., 2006) and anxious attachment (Vrticˇka, Anderson, Grandjean, Sander, & Vuilleumier, 2008). Further, the hypothalamus has been implicated in the soothing effect of attachment figures (see Coan, Schaefer, & Davidson, 2006). These studies suggest that neurobiological vulnerabilities underlie insecurely attached individuals’ tendency to be over‐reactive to threat and less equipped to regulate that threat response.