Department of Psychology and the Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel;
Functional Brain Center, Wohl Institute of Advanced Imaging, andSchool of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel; and.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Jul 8;111(27):9792-7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1402569111. Epub 2014 May 27.
Although contemporary socio-cultural changes dramatically increased fathers' involvement in childrearing, little is known about the brain basis of human fatherhood, its comparability with the maternal brain, and its sensitivity to caregiving experiences. We measured parental brain response to infant stimuli using functional MRI, oxytocin, and parenting behavior in three groups of parents (n = 89) raising their firstborn infant: heterosexual primary-caregiving mothers (PC-Mothers), heterosexual secondary-caregiving fathers (SC-Fathers), and primary-caregiving homosexual fathers (PC-Fathers) rearing infants without maternal involvement. Results revealed that parenting implemented a global "parental caregiving" neural network, mainly consistent across parents, which integrated functioning of two systems: the emotional processing network including subcortical and paralimbic structures associated with vigilance, salience, reward, and motivation, and mentalizing network involving frontopolar-medial-prefrontal and temporo-parietal circuits implicated in social understanding and cognitive empathy. These networks work in concert to imbue infant care with emotional salience, attune with the infant state, and plan adequate parenting. PC-Mothers showed greater activation in emotion processing structures, correlated with oxytocin and parent-infant synchrony, whereas SC-Fathers displayed greater activation in cortical circuits, associated with oxytocin and parenting. PC-Fathers exhibited high amygdala activation similar to PC-Mothers, alongside high activation of superior temporal sulcus (STS) comparable to SC-Fathers, and functional connectivity between amygdala and STS. Among all fathers, time spent in direct childcare was linked with the degree of amygdala-STS connectivity. Findings underscore the common neural basis of maternal and paternal care, chart brain-hormone-behavior pathways that support parenthood, and specify mechanisms of brain malleability with caregiving experiences in human fathers.
尽管当代社会文化的急剧变化大大增加了父亲在育儿中的参与度，但人们对人类父性的大脑基础、与母性大脑的可比性以及对养育经验的敏感性知之甚少。我们使用功能磁共振成像、催产素和育儿行为测量了三组父母（n = 89）对婴儿刺激的大脑反应：异性主要育儿母亲（PC-母亲）、异性次要育儿父亲（SC-父亲）和没有母亲参与育儿的主要同性恋父亲（PC-父亲）。结果表明，育儿实施了一个全局的“父母育儿”神经网络，主要在父母之间一致，它整合了两个系统的功能：包括与警觉、突显、奖励和动机相关的皮质下和边缘结构的情绪处理网络，以及涉及额极-内侧-前额叶和颞顶叶回路的心理化网络，这些回路与社会理解和认知同理心有关。这些网络协同工作，为婴儿护理赋予情感突显，与婴儿状态协调，并计划适当的育儿。PC-母亲在情绪处理结构中表现出更大的激活，与催产素和父母-婴儿同步相关，而 SC-父亲在皮质回路中表现出更大的激活，与催产素和育儿相关。PC-父亲表现出与 PC-母亲相似的高杏仁核激活，以及与 SC-父亲相似的高颞上回（STS）激活，以及杏仁核和 STS 之间的功能连接。在所有父亲中，直接育儿时间与杏仁核-STS 连接程度相关。研究结果强调了母婴育儿的共同神经基础，描绘了支持育儿的大脑-激素-行为途径，并确定了人类父亲在养育经验中大脑可塑性的机制。
