Mother-child bond

The emotional bond between mother and her child may be linked to pleasure pathway.

The emotional bond between mother and her child may be linked to the pleasure pathway in the brain stimulated by addictive drugs.

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Scientists investigating newborn laboratory mice have found a way of breaking the normally strong bond with their mothers by interfering with the body's natural opiates.

Young mice lacking a working opiate system in their brain took little or no interest in their mother's absence compared to ordinary mice who howled endlessly when taken away from their mothers.

The researchers led by Anna Moles of the Italian Institute of Neuroscience in Rome have said that their findings will help explain why some mentally ill children display no emotional attachment to their mothers.

Natural opiates produced endogenously by the brain are crucial to feelings of pleasure, including the emotional pleasure of young mice being close to a mother.

"A malfunctioning of the endogenous opiods system may be implicated in the social indifference displayed by autistic infants," the Independent quoted the scientists as saying.