Father is a bit like mother too

Researchers found maternal function in the brains of gay fathers

Anyone who has experienced this knows that the transition from a life without children to the status of parents is quite a radical change. The way of life changes, the hours of sleep are shortened and most of the attention and trouble are directed to the concern for the needs, well-being and safety of the creature that is completely dependent on its parents. The birth of a new baby not only affects the parents externally, but causes a deep internal change in them. Parents' brains undergo a series of changes when a baby enters their lives, but surprisingly, until now very little was known about these changes. This bit mainly belongs to the knowledge about the changes taking place in the birthing mother. Scientists knew almost nothing about what was going on in the mind of the new father.

Compared to the lack of clarity that surrounds the processes in the human brain, science has accumulated considerable knowledge about what happens in other mammals - again, especially in mothers. Many studies, mainly on mice and rats, have shown that the hormonal changes that occur during pregnancy and childbirth sharpen the senses of the new mothers, such as smell and hearing, which are essential for caring for the newborn's knee; improve memory, learning and orientation, which help the mother in obtaining food for the offspring; and change her behavior and make her more protective of the offspring and more aggressive towards the environment that may threaten it. Additional studies have found that the newborn also activates a reward system in the mother, which causes her a sense of satisfaction from the great devotion to him. This is probably the system that also causes a mother who is exhausted from caring for a shrieking creature, which produces secretions that are not always pleasant to the eye and nose, and is not always the most beautiful creature of its kind - to see in it the totality of perfection and to be constantly delighted by it (and in the case of Homo sapiens mothers, it also produces a deep conviction - although not always with a basis - that the whole environment feels the same).

Passing a route

To examine the situation in humans, the researchers from the Department of Psychology and the Center for Brain Research at Bar Ilan University chose 89 participants in the experiment, all of them new parents of their first baby. The subjects belonged to two main groups: heterosexual couples - man and woman; And homosexual couples, two men raising a baby together without a mother present. The researchers held personal meetings with the young families, recorded them on video and meticulously analyzed the interactions between the two parents and the baby. They also looked at the oxytocin levels in the parents. The brain activity was examined with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) device - once while watching the family videos taken at their homes, and once while watching other videos (to see the difference between the reaction of the baby and the normal situation).

The analysis of family behavior revealed that in couples of a man and a woman, the mother is the primary caretaker of the baby. In contrast, in couples of two men, there is a more equal distribution of care.

In the examination of the brain activity, it became clear that there are two neural networks responsible for the parental care of the baby, which are activated in different neural pathways. In the path that took place in mothers, there is a less conscious and more rapid activity of emotional processing, which results from the fact that hormones, mainly oxytocin, activate different areas of the brain, chief among them the amygdala. . In contrast, in fathers in heterosexual couples, the brain changes of parenting are activated in a slower pathway, through the activation of socio-cognitive centers in the brain, which generate a more mental and cognitive change, and less emotional than that which occurs in the mother. In simpler words, when the baby cries, it arouses a strong emotion in the mother, and a biological urge to help him, while in the father there is less emotion and more understanding that the baby needs assistance.

The most interesting finding was obtained in the homosexual couples. When both men raise a baby together with equal parenting, both pathways are activated simultaneously: both the maternal, emotional pathway, which is activated through the amygdala, and the paternal, mental pathway. "We have shown that fathers can also activate the same neural network that operates in the mother," says the head of the research team, Prof. Ruth Feldman, "and this is a very different phenomenon from what was previously thought to be possible in the father's brain."

A question of intensity

The research was led by Feldman's student, Eyal Avraham, and was done in collaboration with Prof. Thelma Handler from the School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and the director of the imaging unit at Ichilov Hospital. It is also partnered by Irit Shapira-Lichter, Yaniv Kent-Maimon and Dr. Orna Zaguri-Sharon. The article was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The researchers emphasize that the brain changes in response to parenthood are not related to the gender of the parent, or his sexual orientation. According to them, what determines which brain pathway will be activated is the degree of intensity of the treatment of the baby, and the physical proximity to him. In the common heterosexual model, the father - even if he is very devoted - allows himself to reduce the intensity of care for the baby, and not turn to the maternal brain pathway (this is not done consciously, of course), because he knows that the mother next to him activates this pathway. The assumption arising from the research is that the activation of the maternal response is not unique to homosexuals, and it will also occur in heterosexual men in circumstances where they are forced to take care of the baby alone. "The findings show that the human brain is very flexible, and can change the pathways it operates in according to needs," says Feldman. Another interesting finding that emerged from the study is that there is no visible connection between breastfeeding and the activation of the brain pathway in the mother. In other words, no differences were found between breastfeeding and non-breastfeeding mothers.

Getting out of depression

In follow-up studies, the researchers hope to examine the changes in the brain more thoroughly, and try to start monitoring before the baby is born, so that they can compare the situation before and after the birth in the same parent. Another aspect that Feldman and her colleagues intend to examine is what happens in the brain when there are deficiencies in the functioning of the system. This is what they suspect happens in postpartum depression. Such depression appears in about 15% of women (and also in a certain proportion of men), and in severe cases completely prevents parental functioning. The researchers hypothesize that the depression may be caused by a malfunction of the neural network responsible for the brain changes that occur in parenting. If the hypothesis is correct - it is possible that treatment with oxytocin, for example, may activate the system, and put an end to depression.