Abstract
Early life-stress, particularly maternal deprivation, is associated with long-lasting deviations in animals’ freezing responses. Given the relevance of freezing for stress-coping, translational research is needed to examine the relation between insecure infant-parent attachment and bodily freezing-like behavior in humans. Therefore, we investigated threat-related reductions in body sway (indicative of freezing-like behavior) in 14-year-old adolescents (N = 79), for whom attachment security was earlier assessed in infancy. As expected, insecure (vs. secure) attachment was associated with less body sway for angry vs. neutral faces. This effect remained when controlling for intermediate life events. These results suggest that the long-lasting effects of early negative caregiving experiences on the human stress and threat systems extend to the primary defensive reaction of freezing. Additionally, we replicated earlier work in adults, by observing a significant correlation (in adolescents assessed as securely attached) between subjective state anxiety and reduced body sway in response to angry vs. neutral faces. Together, this research opens venues to start exploring the role of freezing in the development of human psychopathology.
Highlights
Freezing is a major defensive stress-response in animals
Actual posturographic analyses, using a stabilometric force-platform, confirmed that viewing of aversive stimuli could induce significant reductions in body sway as well as heart rate and reduction in body-sway has been introduced as a proxy to operationalize freezing-like behavior in humans (Azevedo et al, 2005; Facchinetti et al, 2006; Stins and Beek, 2007; Lopes et al, 2009; Roelofs et al, 2010; Hagenaars et al, 2012)
Retrospective self-reported experiences of aversive life events were found to be associated with increased freezing-like behavior (Hagenaars et al, 2012)
Summary
Freezing is a major defensive stress-response in animals. It is characterized by reduced body motion and is often accompanied by decreased heart rate (Fanselow, 1984; Schenberg et al, 1993). In the first years of life, when the developing threat and stress systems are most plastic and open to modifications by experience, elevated levels of chronic stress, which are likely experienced by insecurely attached infants, may lead to an overly reactive stress-response system and a hypersensitive threat-appraisal system This may bias the threat system to rapidly orchestrate exaggerated defensive behaviors, such as exaggerated freezing. Actual posturographic analyses, using a stabilometric force-platform, confirmed that viewing of aversive (vs neutral and appetitive) stimuli could induce significant reductions in body sway as well as heart rate and reduction in body-sway has been introduced as a proxy to operationalize freezing-like behavior in humans (Azevedo et al, 2005; Facchinetti et al, 2006; Stins and Beek, 2007; Lopes et al, 2009; Roelofs et al, 2010; Hagenaars et al, 2012) Using these methods, retrospective self-reported experiences of aversive life events were found to be associated with increased freezing-like behavior (Hagenaars et al, 2012). We explored whether the observed freezing-like behavior in adolescents is related to state anxiety as was previously found in adults (Roelofs et al, 2010)
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