Séminaire de Pascal Vrticka

Dr Pascal Vrticka (Centre for Brain Science, Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom)

“TWO NEUROANATOMICAL MODELS OF ORGANISED AND DISORGANISED HUMAN ATTACHMENT – NAMA & NAMDA”

Vendredi 17 Juin à 14h00 (Attention à l’heure inhabituelle)

https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/96863014880?pwd=RWVMbWM5MkFvczdSMUdqOXovSXhnZz09

https://pvrticka.com/attachment/nama_and_namda/

Dr Pascal Vrticka is a social neuroscientist with strong ties to developmental & social psychology. His research focuses on the psychological, behavioural, biological, and brain basis of human social interaction, attachment, and caregiving. 

One area of Dr Vrticka’s research is dedicated to measuring neurobiological responses to different kinds of social versus non-social information in individual participants. This 1^st person social neuroscience approach relies on (functional) magnetic resonance imaging – (f)MRI – and electroencephalography – EEG.

Invité par Hannah Ihme (CanoP)

ABSTRACT

A Functional Neuro-Anatomical Model of Attachment – NAMA aims at providing a model for the putative biological and neural underpinnings of the attachment behavioural system in humans. To do so, NAMA differentiates between an affective evaluation (left) and a cognitive control (right) system that are in a dynamic balance (“push-pull”).While the affective evaluation system is thought to process incoming information rather quickly and automatically (i.e. bottom-up), the cognitive control system likely represents more voluntary regulatory processes that can modulate affective evaluation mechanisms (i.e. top-down). NAMA further differentiates the affective evaluation system into an aversion (red) and an approach (green) module (that also are in a dynamic balance; “push-pull”), and the cognitive control system into an emotion regulation (blue) and a mental state representation (orange) module. Finally, NAMA suggests a (non-exhaustive) list of involved brain circuits for each module & system, and a (non-exhaustive) list of involved neurotransmitters / -peptides. The so far available data (mainly from adults) suggest that the organised attachment orientations / classifications of insecure-avoidant and insecure-anxious (as compared to secure) differentially influence affective evaluation and cognitive control mechanisms. While both insecure attachment orientations appear to (at least partially) interfere with emotion (self-)regulation mechanisms as part of the cognitive control system, attachment avoidance and anxiety seem to have opposite effects on affective evaluation processes. Attachment avoidance may be mainly associated with a general blunting of affective evaluation processes, particularly in the case of positive social information (neurally represented in the approach module). In turn, attachment anxiety may be mainly linked to a general intensification of affective evaluation processes, especially in the case of negative social information (neurally represented in the aversion module).