Megan R Gunnar

My lab studies the effects of early deprived care on the development of self-regulatory systems, including systems involved in both stress and socioemotional regulation. We study the two arms of the mammalian stress system: the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system and the sympathetic-adrenomedullary (SAM) system. We also study cognitive systems involved in socioemotional regulation, including reactive (vigilance) and executive attention systems. Animal studies have demonstrated that the quality of care young mammals receive early in life programs these systems to either anticipate harsh or more benign life conditions. When programmed for harsh conditions, stress, emotion and cognitive systems are biased towards “reaction” rather than “reflection”. That is, they are biased towards hyper-vigilance and defensive responding (i.e., fight/flight/freeze) at the expense of reflective, analytic modes of processing information and responding to events. Our lab is examining whether and how the human “chapter to this mammalian story” is written.

We have been working with children adopted internationally to learn how early adverse care impacts development. Many of the children we work with have been adopted from orphanages/institutions, while some come from foster care settings overseas. Increasingly we are seeing children with mixed institutional/foster care backgrounds. These children share the experience of a marked change in life conditions with adoption that allows us to examine questions about the impact of both dose and duration of early adverse care. Our website provides information about our findings and about the studies we are currently conducting.  

International Adoption Project

We find evidence that early experiences have lasting impact on stress and socioemotional regulatory systems, but we also find evidence that these systems, calibrated early to harsh conditions, may be capable of at least limited “recalibration” later in life. Puberty may be a particularly important period for such recalibration and many of our studies are now focused on puberty and adolescent development in children exposed adverse care conditions early in life.

We are part of several research networks that inform our work.  The National Institute of Mental Health funds our Early Experience, Stress and Neurobehavioral Development Center that Professor Gunnar Co-directs and the Experience-Based Brain and Biological Development Program. To help give the science away so that it can influence individuals who make policies that impact young children, our lab is a part of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child.

Selected Publications

1. Tarullo, A., Garvin, M., & Gunnar, M.R. (2011) Atypical EEG power correlates with indiscriminately friendly behavior in internationally adopted children Developmental Psychology, 47, 417-431.

   Fisher, P.A., Van Ryzin, M.J. & Gunnar, M.R. (2011).  Mitigating HPA axis dysregulation associated with placement changes in foster care. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 36, 531-539.

   Phillips, D.A., Fox, N.A., Gunnar, M.R. (2011). Same place, different experiences: Bringing individual differences to research in child care. Child Development Perspectives. 5 (1),  44–49.

   Gunnar, M.R., Kryzer, E., Van Ryzin, M.J. & Phillips, D.A. (2011). The import of the cortisol rise in child care differs as a function of behavioral inhibition. Developmental Psychology. 47(3):792-803.

   Tarullo, A., Mliner, S., & Gunnar, M.R. (2011). Inhibition and exuberance in preschool classrooms: Associations with peer social experience and changes in cortisol across the preschool year. Developmental Psychology. 47(5):1374-88

   Johnson, A.E., Bruce, J., Tarullo, A.R., & Gunnar, M.R. (2011). Growth delay as an index of allostatic load in young children: Predictions to disinhibited social approach and diurnal cortisol activity. Development and Psychopathology.23, 859-71.

   Bakermans-Kranenburg, M.J. Steele, H., Zeanah, C. H., Muhamedrahimov, R. J., Vorria, P., Dobrova-Krol, N. A., Steele, M., Van IJzendoorn, M. H., Juffer, F., & Gunnar, M. R. (2011). Attachment and emotional development. In institutional care: Characteristics and catch-up. In R. B. McCall, M. H. van IJzendoorn, F. Juffer, C. J. Groark, and V. K. Groza (Eds.), Children without permanent parents: Research, practice, and policy. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 76 (4), 62-91.

   Johnson, D.E., & Gunnar, M.R. (2011). Growth failure in institutionalized children. In R. B. McCall, M. H. van IJzendoorn, F. Juffer, C. J. Groark, and V. K. Groza (Eds.), Children without permanent parents: Research, practice, and policy. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 76 (4), 92-126.

   Nelson, C.A., Bos, K., Gunnar, M.R., Sonuga-Barke, E.J.S. (2011). The neurobiological toll of early human deprivation. In R. B. McCall, M. H. van IJzendoorn, F. Juffer, C. J. Groark, and V. K. Groza (Eds.), Children without permanent parents: Research, practice, and policy. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 76 (4), 127-146

   Quevedo, K., Johnson, A., Loman, M., Lafavor, T., & Gunnar, M.R. (2012). The confluence of early deprivation and puberty on the cortisol awakening response: A study of post-institutionalized children. Invited Paper in Fox (Ed) Special Issue. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 36 (1), 19-38.

   Guler, O.E., Hostinar, C., Frenn, K.A., Nelson, C.A., Gunnar, M.R., & Thomas, K. M. (2012). Electrophysiological evidence of altered memory processing in children experiencing early deprivation. Developmental Science, 15, 345-58

   Azak, S., Murison, R., Wentzel-Larsen, T. Smith, L., and Gunnar, M.R. (2012).  Maternal depression and infant daytime cortisol. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 15(3):345-58.

   Osterholm, E.A., Hostinar, C.E., and Gunnar, M.R. (in press). Alterations in stress responses of the hypothalamic pituitary-adrenocortical axis in small for gestational age infants. Psychoneuroendocrinology, e-pub ahead of print.