We compared the structure and the content of mothers' and fathers' infant-directed speech as a function of infant birth order. Seven first-born and four second-born infants were video-recorded during their natural dyadic interactions with their mothers and fathers at home from the second to the sixth month after birth at 15-day intervals.…

These experiments examined the relationship between the neurotrophic factor fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) and individual differences in the expression of conditioned fear. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that rats naturally expressing low levels of contextual or cued fear have higher levels of hippocampal FGF2 relative to rats that express…

This study investigated continuity and stability of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) response measures in mother-infant dyads across 2 different types of social stress sessions. Synchrony of response trajectories across systems (SNS-HPA coordination) and partners (mother-infant attunement) was addressed, as…

Glucose enhances memory in a variety of species. In humans, glucose administration enhances episodic memory encoding, although little is known regarding the neural mechanisms underlying these effects. Here we examined whether elevating blood glucose would enhance functional MRI (fMRI) activation and connectivity in brain regions associated with…

Emotionality as well as cognitive abilities contribute to the acquisition and retrieval of memories as well as to the consolidation of long-term potentiation (LTP), a cellular model of memory formation. However, little is known about the timescale and relative contribution of these processes. Therefore, we tested the effects of weak water maze…

Developmental differences in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis responsiveness to stressors and ongoing development of glucocorticoid-sensitive brain regions in adolescence suggest that similar to the neonatal period of ontogeny, adolescence may also be a sensitive period for programming effects of stressors on the central nervous system.…

Models of stress and health suggest that emotions mediate the effects of stress on health; yet meta-analytic reviews have not confirmed these relationships. Categorizations of emotions along broad dimensions such as valence (e.g., positive and negative affect) may obscure important information about the effects of specific emotions on physiology.…