Neuroscience has been in charge of investigating how a woman’s brain changes when she becomes a mother to take better care of the baby, developing more empathy and affectivity. Due to his growing involvement in raising children, science has wanted to find out if man’s brain also changes and how it changes when he becomes a father .
A recent study has analyzed the influence of oxytocin and vasopressin on men’s relationships with their children and its results are similar to research conducted on women. The more the father is involved in the care of the children , the smaller the differences with the changes produced in the mothers’ brains.
Dad counts too … and a lot
Although the mother is the main reference of the baby, because it was born from her and needs its food and protection during the first months of life (it is clear that mothers have a plus, since they are biologically programmed to be mothers), Research indicates that the emotional ties established with children are not necessarily stronger in the case of mothers, just because they are mothers. Interaction and caring for the baby play a fundamental role in strengthening this bond.
A recent study published in the “Hormones and Behavior” shows increases in oxytocin in brain regions associated with reward and empathy from parents viewing photos of their young children . This experiment had previously been done on mothers, but not yet on fathers.
Even the levels that were registered in them are very similar to those registered in mothers, so that the gap between female and male roles in caring for children is narrowing each time .
Brain changes
Let us remember that oxytocin, known as “the love hormone” is a well-known hormone in our maternal environment, since it is secreted at very high levels during childbirth and also during breastfeeding, related to affectivity. But it is not exclusive to mothers, fathers also segregate it at similar levels to mothers when they interact with their babies.
There is no doubt that there is an evolution in parenthood , parents who naturally bond emotionally with their children. An adaptation in our species that makes it superior to most mammals, in which the male acts as a protector of the offspring. The most involved parenting is changing the brains of parents to take care of their children.
According to a study carried out with 89 new fathers by researchers at the Gonda Center for Brain Sciences at the University of Bar-Ilan, in Israel, unlike mothers, in which greater activity is shown in the amygdala, fathers experience more activity in the superior temporal sulcus of the brain, which is a region that is important for socialization, which helps to interpret facial expressions, to process speech, and to understand how we relate to others from a more rational point of view.
Oxytocin as therapy
Seeing that, when becoming fathers, hormonal changes occur in the brain of men that can facilitate increased empathy and motivation to care for their children, oxytocin is beginning to be seen as a possible therapy to treat depression postpartum in man.
Although there is much more talk about postpartum depression in women, men also suffer from postpartum depression. With the arrival of a child, they too suffer emotional changes that affect their daily lives.
It is believed that about 6% of men can suffer from it and that when they are more “fit” they should be: depression during pregnancy and postpartum also affects them. The causes can be varied, such as feeling isolated due to the care that the woman provides to the baby, not feeling capable of taking care of the baby properly, not complying with the social demands of his environment or believing himself incapable of assuming responsibility for his new role as father. .
According to the authors of this latest research, the study suggests that “oxytocin, known to play a role in social bonding, could one day be used to normalize deficits in paternal motivation, as in men suffering from post-depression depression. Birth”.
Via | SciendeDirect and ABC
Photos | iStockphoto
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