Many women experience cognitive changes during pregnancy and after birth, in what is often referred to as the ‘baby brain’, and what’s new is that the results of a new study suggest that fathers, too, may experience changes in the brain after the birth of their first child, according to the Daily Mail. British Mail, citing a periodical “Cerebral Cortex”.
Ease of communication with the newborn
Researchers from the Carlos III Health Institute in Madrid have found that first-time fathers lose 2% of their gray matter volume after their child is born, and while the cause remains unclear, the researchers suggest that the change could make it easier for parents to communicate with their children.
The effect of fatherhood on the brain
Previous studies have shown that motherhood can change the structure of women’s brains. In particular, women can experience changes in their subcortical limbic networks, specifically in the part of the brain associated with pregnancy hormones. However, researchers were unable to come to a consensus or whether paternity also has an effect on fathers’ brains.
Unique opportunity
The researchers, led by Magdalena Martinez García, wrote that “The Study of Fathers offers a unique opportunity to explore how the experience of parenting can shape the human brain when pregnancy is not directly tested.”
The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to assess the brains of 40 fathers and mothers, half of whom resided in Spain, who participated in brain scans before their wives became pregnant and then again a few months after birth.
The other half of the participants were from the United States, where brain scans were performed during the middle to late stages of their wives’ pregnancy, and then again seven to eight months after birth. Meanwhile, the brains of 17 men without children in Spain were examined as a control group.
Gray matter and the visual system
The MRI scans aimed to measure the size, thickness and structural characteristics of the men’s brains. The results revealed that the men did not experience changes in their limbic networks under the cortex, as did women, but rather showed signs of brain changes in the cortical gray matter, the area of the brain associated with communication and social understanding, along with a decrease in the volume of their visual system.
“The results suggest a unique role for the visual system in helping parents recognize and respond to their children, a hypothesis that could be confirmed by future studies,” the researchers said.
The researchers added, “Understanding how structural changes associated with parenting translate into parenting outcomes is a largely unexplored topic, and offers exciting avenues for future research.”