SYNOPSIS

Parental neuroimaging promises to shed light on how humans adapt to the demands of parenthood, but this research is not without challenges. A study in this issue reports differences between mothers’ and non-mothers’ default mode network activation during a goal-oriented task accompanied by human vocalizations. However, they did not find hypothesized differences in response specifically to infant cry, and the reach of conclusions that can be made based on these findings is limited. In my commentary, I present ideas for ways this work could be extended to make more definitive statements about the nature and potential benefits of parental brain adaptations.

概要

父母的神经成像有望阐明人类如何适应父母的要求，但是这项研究并非没有挑战。本期的一项研究报告，在以人为目标的目标导向任务中，母亲和非母亲的默认模式网络激活之间存在差异。但是，他们没有发现对婴儿哭泣的反应有假设的差异，并且基于这些发现可以得出的结论是有限的。在我的评论中，我提出了有关扩展这项工作的方式的想法，以便对父母的大脑适应的性质和潜在好处做出更明确的陈述。