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Understanding allostasis: Early-life self-regulation involves both up- and down-regulation of arousal

S V Wass1, F U Mirza1, C Smith2

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of East London, London, UK.

Child Development
|July 26, 2024
PubMed

Insights

Infants with better self-regulation skills actively adjust their behavior to manage arousal levels throughout the day. This research highlights the link between early self-regulation and adaptive responses to autonomic arousal in young children.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Autonomic Nervous System Research
  • Infant Behavioral Science

Background:

  • Optimal performance is linked to intermediate autonomic arousal.
  • Previous research has not explored the relationship between endogenous control and children's arousal regulation (up-regulation from hypo-arousal and down-regulation from hyper-arousal).

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if the development of endogenous control in infants is associated with changes in their ability to up-regulate from hypo-arousal and down-regulate from hyper-arousal.
  • To examine the association between laboratory-measured self-regulation and real-world behavioral adjustments to autonomic arousal in 12-month-old infants.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized wearable technology for continuous, day-long autonomic arousal recordings in 58 infants (12 months old).
  • Assessed infant self-regulation in a controlled laboratory setting using the still-face paradigm.
  • Correlated real-world arousal data with in-lab self-regulation measures.

Main Results:

  • Infants demonstrating more self-regulatory behaviors in the lab were more likely to exhibit adaptive behavioral changes in their home environment.
  • These real-world behavioral adjustments were observed to facilitate both up-regulation from low arousal and down-regulation from high arousal.
  • Findings indicate that infants actively modify behavior moment-by-moment in response to changing autonomic arousal levels.

Conclusions:

  • The development of endogenous control in infancy is associated with dynamic, moment-to-moment behavioral adjustments to autonomic arousal.
  • Enhanced self-regulation in infancy may predict the capacity for both up-regulation and down-regulation of arousal.
  • Atypical self-regulation in early development may have implications for later psychopathology.

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