Child neurologist and neuroscientist Tallie Baram has conducted one of the more recent examples of this important field of research. She found that a mother’s caress triggers activity that improves cognition and resilience to stress in a baby’s developing brain. The mother’s touch could literally prevent the release of stress hormones that have been shown to lead to the disintegration of dendritic spines, branchlike structures on the neurons that are important to the sending and receiving of messages and the encoding of memory.
