Babies will inspire the "dad brain" of the new dad

A new study of new dads from the University of Southern California shows that their brains undergo measurable changes
after a child is born.

Some of these changes involve slight brain atrophy
.
What's more, the brain changes in the new father seem to largely affect the areas
associated with empathy and visual processing.
These changes are thought to contribute to neuroplasticity — the brain's ability
to create and form new synaptic connections to accommodate new experiences.

Darby Saxbe, senior author of the study and a professor of psychology at USC's Dornsif College of Arts and Sciences, said: "Parenthood requires changes in your lifestyle and physiology
.
" "This requires new skills, such as being able to empathize with babies without words, so this makes sense, but it hasn't been shown that the brain will also be particularly malleable in the transition to parenthood
.
"

The study was published this month in the journal Cortex
.
The study scanned the brains of 40 fathers-to-be, 20 from the United States and 20 from Spain
.
To make comparisons, the researchers also studied 17 childless fathers
who were scanned in Spain.

Parenting brain network

In Spain, the researchers scanned the brains of fathers (with an average age of 35) before their partners became pregnant and two to three months after their partners gave birth
.
Men without children also receive scans at regular intervals
.

In the U.
S.
study, researchers scanned their partners' brains
while they were in the third trimester of pregnancy (about 30 weeks).
They scanned the father's brain
again 7 to 9 months after the child was born.

Scientists have found that the most significant changes in both Spaniards and Americans occur in the cerebral cortex — the outer layer of the brain — related to
attention, planning and executive functions.
Comparing the results of fathers' scans before and after the baby's birth, it can be seen that the part of the cerebral cortex responsible for processing visual information and the part of the brain's default pattern network have changed
.
Men without children have no such changes
.

The default mode network may activate
when someone daydreams, recalls memories, or thinks about the future.
Scientists believe that areas of the network are related to empathy, that is, thinking about the thoughts and feelings of
others.

Daddy's brain vs Mom's brain

Previous studies of mothers have shown that women's cortical regions have changed, and these regions are key
to the default mode network.
These women also had changes in the subcortical areas (below the cortical surface) that were associated
with the mother's emotional, threatening, and reward processing.
The researchers say this is the key difference
between a mother and a father.

"It's too early to speculate with such a small sample, but it may suggest that more and higher-level cognitive processes involve the father, and the mother also shows more basic mammal-level changes
," Sachsbey said.
In any case, the fact that we found that the cerebral cortex of both the father and the mother has changed suggests that some kind of remodeling
is taking place in the social brain.
”

Sachsby said she hopes to further study the changes in the brain during fatherhood and examine their hormonal changes
.