Early relational health and its impact on the developing brain – A scoping review

The formation of secure parent-child bonds in early life, hereto referred to as early relational health, plays a central role in healthy development. However, the evidence on how early relational health ‘gets under the skin’ to impact the developing brain remains unclear. Here we provide a scoping review of the extant literature and synthesise evidence on the link between relational health from conception to age three and subsequent brain structure, function and connectivity. Literature searches in MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Embase databases yielded 6,960 studies. After screening, 64 studies were included in the review. Results were synthesised based on the type of relational health examined, type of imaging modality (e.g., electroencephalogram, structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging), and developmental stage. We identified studies of the relationship between early relational health and brain structure, function, and connectivity that spanned from childhood to young adulthood (but not further). There was evidence for early relational health to be associated with patterns of brain activation that may reflect the experience of more positive emotions and reduced risk for psychopathology. However, few studies examined longitudinal changes in brain structure, function and connectivity. Even fewer have examined relational health beyond the mother-infant bond. Future research is needed to improve understanding of the impact of relational health on brain development, and to ascertain whether such impacts reflect a mechanism linking relational health with health and wellbeing across the lifespan.