1st Edition
Psychobiological Footprints through Human Development How Our Experiences Shape Who We Are
Prologue
Where do we come from?
What will you find in this book?
SECTION 1 – THEORY
1. Order and disorder
Non-linear dynamics of development
When we started observing
The system
Organization and specificity: The centrality of time
Inevitable ruptures
Matching, mismatching and other dance steps
Meaning making
2. Born to be wired
In Taung (South Africa)
In utero
Just like me
Giant cells
The skin as a place to meet
Conclusions
3. The assembly grammar
To select and to instruct
Not in a vacuum
Frog thighs and hearts
Chemical brothers
The assembly
Learn like a slug
Beyond learning: Recollection
An integrated systemic view of developmental psychobiology
SECTION 2 – PROCESSES
4. Social by evolution
The Da Vinci code
The vagal paradox
Of reptiles and mammals
Polyvagal
Critiques
In unison
5. The culprit of stress
Let’s stress it out
A neuroendocrine cascade
Everyday resilience
Pump up the volume or shut the system down?
What makes a good rat mama
Too much and too little
Paying the consequences
Parenting as a protective buffer
Not only stress: The role of HPA in memory and learning
6. Genes and what you do
Genetics and psychology, a difficult relationship?
From quantitative genetics to molecular genetics
Vulnerable to stress
Evolutionary reasons
Conditional adjustments
Temperament and sensitivity
Genetic variations
Positive and negative: Does it make sense?
7. Footprints in the epigenome
Paris and London
Looking at another landscape
Stories of rodents
Hallelujah
Behavioral epigenetics
The seductive charm of a promise
8. Other frontiers
Stress that can inflame
A second brain
Powerful organelles
As long as life
SECTION 3 – CONTEXTS
9. Waiting for
The placental barrier
Beyond the barrier
Caregiving programming
Prenatal conflicts
10. Born soon
Dark side
Protecting the newborn and the parents
Epigenetics and neuroplasticity
Behavioral epigenetics of prematurity
Light side
11. Embodied parenting
Psychobiology of maternal caregiving
Is there a paternal brain?
Hormonal plasticity
Synced dancers
Interbrain wires
12. Memories of trauma
Psychobiological scars
9/11
Below zero
The hunger winter
Inheriting a nightmare
Concluding remarks
Epilogue
Framing developmental psychobiology in complexity
Complex
Wired
Quasi-adapted
Intentional
What's wrong?
How do we proceed from here on out?
Biography
Livio Provenzi, psychologist and psychoanalyst, holds a PhD in Psychology from the Catholic University of Milan and a specialization in Psychotherapy from the Italian Society of Relationship Psychoanalysis. Author of numerous publications in international scientific journals, Livio Provenzi is Associate Professor in the Department of Brain and Behavioural Sciences of the University of Pavia, where he teaches Developmental Psychobiology and Developmental Psychopathology. He also directs the Developmental Psychobiology Lab of the Mondino Foundation, Pavia (Italy).
