title: Father's brain is sensitive to childcare experiences.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and the Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel;
authors.forename: Eyal
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Abraham
authors.affiliation: 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.
authors.forename: Talma
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hendler
authors.affiliation: Functional Brain Center, Wohl Institute of Advanced Imaging, andFunctional Neurosurgery Unit, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Center, Tel Aviv 64239, Israel;
authors.forename: Irit
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Shapira-Lichter
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center, Herzlia 46346, Israel.
authors.forename: Yaniv
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kanat-Maymon
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and the Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel;
authors.forename: Orna
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Zagoory-Sharon
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and the Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel; feldman@mail.biu.ac.il.
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Feldman
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions; D005219:Father-Child Relations; D005220:Fathers; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012725:Sexual Behavior
keywords: alloparental care; mothering; parent–infant interaction; social brain; transition to parenthood