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Bonding, brain chemistry linked (Los Angeles Times)

Children adopted from abroad often have difficulties adjusting to their new families and to life in this country, exhibiting poor social skills, problems bonding with new family members and reticence in dealing with strangers.

Those difficulties are generally traced back to emotional deprivation in large orphanages, where infants often outnumber staff by 40 to 1, and caregivers do little more than feed and change the infants.