Dad’s Brain Becomes More ‘Maternal’ When He’s Primary Caregiver
Fathers who spend more time taking care of their newborn child undergo changes in brain activity that make them more apt to fret about their baby’s safety, a new study shows.
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In particular, fathers who are the primary caregiver experience an increase in activity in their amygdala and other emotional-processing systems, causing them to experience parental emotions similar to those typically experienced by mothers, the researchers noted.
The findings suggest there is a neural network in the brain dedicated to parenting, and that the network responds to changes in parental roles, said study senior author Ruth Feldman, a researcher in the department of psychology and the Gonda Brain Sciences Center at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
"Pregnancy, childbirth and lactation are very powerful primers in women to worry about their child’s survival," said Feldman, who also serves as an adjunct professor at the Yale Child Study Center at Yale University. "Fathers have the capacity to do it as well as mothers, but they need daily caregiving activities to ignite that mothering network."
