Behavioral Neuroscience & Development

I am interested in the various routes (environmental, genetic, epigenetic) through which mothers and fathers may have a differential impact upon their offspring’s development, and how these effects may be transmitted trans-generationally. I am particularly interested in the mother-infant relationship and how each individual regulates this interaction as well as the consequences of variations in this care for offspring behavior. I also investigate the neural regulation of maternal care and argue that the evolution of these neural systems formed the basis for the evolution of regulating complex mammalian social relationships. Finally, I research the inter-relationship between parental anxiety and depression, family functioning, child attachment and behavioral outcomes.

Keverne EB & Curley JP, (in press), Epigenetics, brain evolution and behaviour, Frontiers in Endocrinology.

Curley JP, (in press), Parent-of-origin effects on maternal behavior, Progress in Brain Research.

Curley JP, Champagne FA, Bateson P & Keverne EB, (in press), Trans-generational effects of impaired maternal care on behaviour of offspring and grand-offspring. Animal Behaviour.

Curley JP, Barton SC, Surani AM & Keverne EB, (2004), Co-adaptation in mother and infant regulated by a paternally expressed imprinted gene, Proc Roy Soc Ser B 271: 1303-1309.

Broad KD, Curley JP & Keverne EB, (2006), Mother-infant bonding and the evolution of mammalian social relationships, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. 361: 2199-2214.

Stevenson-Hinde J, Curley JP, Chicot R & Jóhannsson C, (2007) Anxiety within families: Consistency and change across time. Family Process 46: 543-556.

W3615 Children at Risk (seminar)