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Subject: NIH BRAIN IMAGING STUDY FINDS EVIDENCE OF BASIS FOR CAREGIVING
IMPULSE

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
NIH News Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development (NICHD) <http://www.nichd.nih.gov/> For Immediate Release:
Friday, March 16, 2012 

CONTACT: Robert Bock or Marianne Glass Miller, 301-496-5133,
<e-mail:[log in to unmask]>

NIH BRAIN IMAGING STUDY FINDS EVIDENCE OF BASIS FOR CAREGIVING IMPULSE
Infants' faces evoke species-specific patterns of brain activity in adults

Distinct patterns of activity -- which may indicate a predisposition to care
for infants -- appear in the brains of adults who view an image of an infant
face -- even when the child is not theirs, according to a study by
researchers at the National Institutes of Health and in Germany, Italy, and
Japan.

Seeing images of infant faces appeared to activate in the adult's brains
circuits that reflect preparation for movement and speech as well as
feelings of reward.

The findings raise the possibility that studying this activity will yield
insights not only into the caregiver response, but also when the response
fails, such as in instances of child neglect or abuse.

"These adults have no children of their own.  Yet images of a baby's face
triggered what we think might be a deeply embedded response to reach out and
care for that child," said senior author Marc H. Bornstein, Ph.D., head of
the Child and Family Research Section of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the NIH institute that
collaborated on the study.  

While the researchers recorded participants' brain activity, the
participants did not speak or move.  Yet their brain activity was typical of
patterns preceding such actions as picking up or talking to an infant, the
researchers explained.  The activity pattern could represent a biological
impulse that governs adults' interactions with small children.

From their study results, the researchers concluded that this pattern is
specific to seeing human infants.  The pattern did not appear when the
participants looked at photos of adults or of animals -- even baby animals.

Along with Dr. Bornstein, the research was carried out by first author
Andrea Caria, Ph.D., of the University of Tuebingen, in Germany; Paola
Venuti of the Department of Cognitive Science of University of Trento in
Italy; Gianluca Esposito of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Saitama,
Japan; researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics
and Eberhard Karls University, in Tuebingen, Germany.

Their findings appear in the journal NeuroImage.

To collect the data, the researchers showed seven men and nine women a
series of images while recording their brain activity with a functional
magnetic resonance imaging scanner.  In the scanner, participants viewed
images of puppy and kitten faces, full-grown dogs and cats, human infants
and adults. 

When the researchers compared the areas and strength of brain activity in
response to each kind of image, they found that infant images evoked more
activity than any of the other images in brain areas associated with three
main functions:

-- Premotor and preverbal activity --The researchers documented increased
activity in the premotor cortex and the supplemental motor area, which are
regions of the brain directly under the crown of the head.  These regions
orchestrate brain impulses preceding speech and movement but before movement
takes place.

-- Facial recognition -- Activity in the fusiform gyrus -- on each side of
the brain, about where the ears are -- is associated with processing of
information about faces.  Activity the researchers detected in the fusiform
gyrus may indicate heightened attention to the movement and expressions on
an infant's face, the researchers said. 

-- Emotion and reward -- Activity deep in the brain areas known as the
insula and the cingulate cortex indicated emotional arousal, empathy,
attachment and feelings linked to motivation and reward, the researchers
said.  Other studies have documented a similar pattern of activity in the
brains of parents responding to their own infants.    
Participants also rated how they felt when viewing adult and infant faces.
They reported feeling more willing to approach, smile at, and communicate
with an infant than an adult. They also recorded feeling happier when
viewing images of infants.

Taken together, the researchers contend, the findings suggest a readiness to
interact with infants that previously has been only inferred, and only from
parents.  Such brain activity in nonparents could indicate that the
biological makeup of humans includes a mechanism to ensure that infants
survive and receive the care they need to grow and develop.   

However, signs of readiness to care for a child that appear in the brains of
some or even most adults do not necessarily mean the same patterns will
appear in the brains of all adults, Dr. Bornstein said.  "It's equally
important to investigate what's happening in the brains of those who have
neglected or abused children," he said.  "Additional studies could help us
confirm and understand what appears to be a parenting instinct in adults,
both when the instinct functions and when it fails to function." 

About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development (NICHD): The NICHD sponsors research on development,
before and after birth; maternal, child, and family health; reproductive
biology and population issues; and medical rehabilitation.  For more
information, visit the Institute's website at <http://www.nichd.nih.gov/>. 

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical
research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal
agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical
research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both
common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs,
visit <www.nih.gov>.

 NIH...Turning Discovery into Health
##

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<http://www.nih.gov/news/health/mar2012/nichd-16.htm>.

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