Journal article
What's in a Smile? Maternal Brain Responses to Infant Facial Cues
Pediatrics (Evanston), Vol.122(1), pp.40-51
07/2008
DOI: 10.1542/peds.2007-1566
PMCID: PMC2597649
PMID: 18595985
Abstract
OBJECTIVES. Our goal was to determine how a mother's brain responds to her own infant's facial expressions, comparing happy, neutral, and sad face affect.
METHODS. In an event-related functional MRI study, 28 first-time mothers were shown novel face images of their own 5- to 10-month-old infant and a matched unknown infant. Sixty unique stimuli from 6 categories (own-happy, own-neutral, own-sad, unknown-happy, unknown-neutral, and unknown-sad) were presented randomly for 2 seconds each, with a variable 2- to 6-second interstimulus interval.
RESULTS. Key dopamine-associated reward-processing regions of the brain were activated when mothers viewed their own infant's face compared with an unknown infant's face. These included the ventral tegmental area/substantia nigra regions, the striatum, and frontal lobe regions involved in (1) emotion processing (medial prefrontal, anterior cingulate, and insula cortex), (2) cognition (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), and (3) motor/behavioral outputs (primary motor area). Happy, but not neutral or sad own-infant faces, activated nigrostriatal brain regions interconnected by dopaminergic neurons, including the substantia nigra and dorsal putamen. A region-of-interest analysis revealed that activation in these regions was related to positive infant affect (happy > neutral > sad) for each own–unknown infant-face contrast.
CONCLUSIONS. When first-time mothers see their own infant's face, an extensive brain network seems to be activated, wherein affective and cognitive information may be integrated and directed toward motor/behavioral outputs. Dopaminergic reward-related brain regions are activated specifically in response to happy, but not sad, infant faces. Understanding how a mother responds uniquely to her own infant, when smiling or crying, may be the first step in understanding the neural basis of mother–infant attachment.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- What's in a Smile? Maternal Brain Responses to Infant Facial Cues
- Creators
- Lane Strathearn - Meyer Center for Developmental Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TXJian Li - Human Neuroimaging Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TXPeter Fonagy - Sub-Department of Clinical Health Psychology, University College London, UKP. Read Montague - Human Neuroimaging Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Pediatrics (Evanston), Vol.122(1), pp.40-51
- DOI
- 10.1542/peds.2007-1566
- PMID
- 18595985
- PMCID
- PMC2597649
- NLM abbreviation
- Pediatrics
- ISSN
- 0031-4005
- eISSN
- 1098-4275
- Publisher
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 07/2008
- Academic Unit
- Psychiatry; Stead Family Department of Pediatrics; Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics; Neuroscience and Pharmacology
- Record Identifier
- 9984040256402771
Metrics
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