What is Relational Neuroscience?
Relational neuroscience explains how relationships and social systems shape brain development, learning, and performance across children, families, learners, and organisations.
Core ConceptsCo-regulation, synchrony, relational load and relational safety form some of the most essential concepts in relational neuroscience that can be applied to different social contexts across the lifespan.
Co-regulation
Brains regulate through other people before they regulate alone.
From infancy, humans rely on caregivers to help modulate emotion, attention, and physiological arousal. Over time, these relational experiences are internalised and become what we call “self-regulation.” Relational neuroscience emphasises that self-regulation is not an innate, independent skill, but a developmental outcome of repeated co-regulatory experiences. When co-regulation is absent, inconsistent, or overloaded, regulation becomes effortful and fragile across the lifespan.
Synchrony
Alignment between people supports learning, trust, and performance.
Synchrony refers to the temporal alignment of neural and behavioural signals that occurs when individuals are engaged with one another — in their attention, affect, behaviour, and physiology. Research generally shows that synchrony predicts learning, social understanding, and relationship quality in both children and adults, although research in this area is rapidly developing. Within relational neuroscience, synchrony is generally understood as a neural marker of effective relationships, enabling brains to coordinate, anticipate, and adapt together.
Relational Load
Stress and cognitive–emotional demands are distributed across relationships.
Relational load captures the idea that stress is not experienced solely within individuals, but is carried, amplified, or buffered through social contexts. Parenting young children, caring for ageing parents, leading teams, managing emotions in relationships, and carrying responsibility for others’ wellbeing all add to relational load. When relational load exceeds available support, stress accumulates and capacity diminishes. This pillar reframes stress and burnout from an interpersonal perspective.
Relational Safety
Brains function optimally when relationships feel predictable and safe.
Relational safety refers to the degree to which social environments are experienced as non-threatening, responsive, and reliable. When relational safety is low, the brain prioritises vigilance and threat detection over learning, creativity, and performance. Relational safety could refer to secure attachment, emotional availability and psychological safety which are prerequisites for higher-order functioning, across families, classrooms, teams, and organisations.
