Young rat pups and children show blunted stress and fear to threat if the caregiver is present (social buffering), although, the effect is reduced in maltreated children. We showed that maternal presence attenuated hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) during a threat, but it was not attenuated in abused rat pups. This suggests that the inability of abused pups to be socially buffered by the mother is due to maternal presence's failure to block HPA activation.