Limbic-visual attenuation to crying faces underlies neglectful mothering

Neglectful mothering is one of the most common forms of childhood maltreatment, involving a severe disregard of the child’s needs, yet little is known about its neural substrate. A child’s needs are usually conveyed by signals of distress revealed by crying faces. We tested whether infant and adult crying faces are processed differently in two sociodemographically similar groups of Neglectful (NM) and non-neglectful Control Mothers (CM). We used...