Relational Neuroscience of Development™

A New Way of Understanding How Brains Develop

For decades, neuroscience has focused on the individual brain — how it regulates, learns and adapts. But human brains do not develop in isolation. They develop in relationships. Relational Neuroscience of Development is a framework I developed to explain how interaction, safety and social environments shape neural organisation across the lifespan — from infancy to adulthood, and from families to institutions (Azhari, 2026; in preparation).

Core principles

Neural regulation, learning and resilience are not purely individual capacities. They are organised within relational systems that operate across three interconnected layers:

  1. Interactional Processes – how people regulate and align with one another in real time

  2. Relational Conditions – whether environments feel safe, supportive or destabilising

  3. Developmental & Systemic Patterns – how repeated relational experiences accumulate and shape long-term outcomes

Together, these layers explain how moment-to-moment interactions scale into developmental trajectories and institutional cultures.

  • How brains organise together in real time

    At the most immediate level, development unfolds through:

    • Co-regulation – how one person stabilises or destabilises another’s stress, emotion and attention.

    • Alignment – how people coordinate attention, meaning and timing during interaction.

    These processes shape neural engagement moment by moment.

  • What makes regulation possible

    Interaction depends on context.

    Two key conditions matter:

    • Relational safety – when environments feel predictable and non-threatening, the brain can explore and learn.

    • Amplification and buffering – emotions spread. Stress can escalate across people, but it can also be reduced through supportive relationships.

    These conditions determine whether interaction builds stability or vulnerability.

  • What happens over time

    Repeated relational experiences accumulate.

    Over time they shape:

    • Stress regulation systems

    • Learning trajectories

    • Behavioural patterns

    • Institutional climates

    • Intergenerational outcomes

    Small, repeated relational experiences matter.

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“By reframing capacities typically treated as individual skills—such as self-regulation, resilience, and performance—as relationally scaffolded outcomes, the framework shifts explanatory focus from individual deficits to relational and systemic conditions.”

— Assoc. Prof. Atiqah Azhari