Research reportDisorganized attachment in infancy predicts greater amygdala volume in adulthood

- Attachment disturbance in infancy predicts larger left amygdala volume in adulthood.
- Prediction is independent of later maltreatment and later attachment quality.
- Attachment disturbance also predicts adult dissociation and limbic irritability.
- Left volume mediates the relation between early attachment and limbic irritability.
- Disturbed infant attachment may affect adult amygdala volume and psychopathology.

Early life stress in rodents is associated with increased amygdala volume in adulthood. In humans, the amygdala develops rapidly during the first two years of life. Thus, disturbed care during this period may be particularly important to amygdala development. In the context of a 30-year longitudinal study of impoverished, highly stressed families, we assessed whether disorganization of the attachment relationship in infancy was related to amygdala volume in adulthood. Amygdala volumes were assessed among 18 low-income young adults (8 M/10F, 29.33 ± 0.49 years) first observed in infancy (8.5 ± 5.6 months) and followed longitudinally to age 29. In infancy (18.58 ± 1.02 mos), both disorganized infant attachment behavior and disrupted maternal communication were assessed in the standard Strange Situation Procedure (SSP). Increased left amygdala volume in adulthood was associated with both maternal and infant components of disorganized attachment interactions at 18 months of age (overall r = 0.679, p < 0.004). Later stressors, including childhood maltreatment and attachment disturbance in adolescence, were not significantly related to left amygdala volume. Left amygdala volume was further associated with dissociation and limbic irritability in adulthood. Finally, left amygdala volume mediated the prediction from attachment disturbance in infancy to limbic irritability in adulthood. Results point to the likely importance of quality of early care for amygdala development in human children as well as in rodents. The long-term prediction found here suggests that the first two years of life may be an early sensitive period for amygdala development during which clinical intervention could have particularly important consequences for later child outcomes.