Simply Attached

Attachment is one example of how biological and environmental processes are codependent on each other.  First, we has humans are biologically predisposed to become attached to significant others. Second, culture defines the appropriate way to engage in this activity.  Interestingly, during ontogeny, cultural processes may become embodied in our biological structures; these epigenetic processes have been termed biological embedding.  In other words, early experience may guide brain development.  For examples neuroscience has demonstrated that experience plays a much larger role in cognitive development than has previously been thought.  In fact, it has the potential to demonstrate the importance of experience-induced brain plasticity; one major finding is that genes are not static and experience plays a major role in gene expression.  For example, maternal behavior can act as a mechanism that alters gene expression.

An interesting question is, How has research demonstrated the importance of love? 

Concilience in the Making

In relation to the study of cognitive development, neuroscience research can be described as providing consilience: the agreement of two or more inductions drawn from different sets of data. In other words, neuroscience research has linked the biological mechanisms that have been described by cognitive psychologists—which have been either ignored or controversial within the medical community. The research results are promising; besides being implemental in understanding the relationship of experience and brain plasticity, neuroscience research has demonstrated its capacity to detect problems before they are exhibited through observable behavior.