Brain Responses to Emotional Infant Faces in New Mothers and Nulliparous Women.

ABSTRACT: The experience of motherhood is one of the most salient events in a woman's life. Motherhood is associated with a series of neurophysiological, psychological, and behavioral changes that allow women to better adapt to their new role as mothers. Infants communicate their needs and physiological states mainly through salient emotional expressions, and maternal responses to infant signals are critical for infant survival and development. In this study, we investigated the whole brain functional response to emotional infant faces in 20 new mothers and 22 nulliparous women during functional magnetic resonance imaging scans. New mothers showed higher brain activation in regions involved in infant facial expression processing and empathic and mentalizing networks than nulliparous women. Furthermo

SUBMITTER: Zhang K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7293211 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature