Parental brain
brain changes from parental experience and hormones
Parental experience, as well as changing hormone levels during pregnancy and postpartum, cause changes in the parental brain. Displaying maternal sensitivity towards infant cues, processing those cues and being motivated to engage socially with her infant and attend to the infant's needs in any context could be described as mothering behavior and is regulated by many systems in the maternal brain. Research has shown that hormones such as oxytocin, prolactin, estradiol and progesterone are essential for the onset and the maintenance of maternal behavior in rats, and other mammals as well. Mothering behavior has also been classified within the basic drives (sexual desire, hunger and thirst, fear, power/dominance etc.).
Less is known about the paternal brain, but changes in the father's brain occur alongside the mother. Research on this topic is continuing to expand as more researchers examine fathers. Many of the brain regions and networks responsible for parental behavior are responsible for parental behavior in human fathers after having a child. Changes in hormones, brain activation and brain structure (mainly changes in gray matter) are seen in both human mothers and fathers, with hormonal changes beginning in both males and females before the birth of their children, with changes continuing to develop after the birth of children.
Maternal brain
Maternal hormonal effect
Different hormone levels in the maternal brain and the overall well being of the mother account for 40%–50% of differences in the mother's attachment to her infant. Mothers experience a decrease in estrogen and an increase in oxytocin and prolactin caused by lactation, pregnancy, parturition and interaction with the infant.
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This entry incorporates text from “Parental brain” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.