DID YOU KNOW highlights key research findings that reveal knowledge about a unique aspect of fatherhood or capture surprising information about fatherhood, often relating directly to a TFP program area.
DID YOU KNOW men’s brains may be designed to care for their young?
Research has shown that the brains of female mammals are designed to nurture and care for their offspring. The study below highlights the fact that the same is likely true for males.
HIGHLIGHTED STUDY
Wu, Z., Autry, A. E., Bergan, J. F., Watabe-Uchida, M., & Dulac, C. G. (2014). Galanin neurons in the medial preoptic area govern parental behaviour. Nature, 509(7500), 325-330.
—-
DID YOU KNOW…that male mice have the same neurocircuits used in parenting as females? Virgin male mice, which normally act aggressively toward pups, can be turned into doting fathers by stimulating a set of neurons that influence parental behavior, neurons shared by both male and females. When the researchers in this study stimulated these neurons in male mice, the normally hostile males became “perfect dads.” Their infanticidal instinct vanished. They built nests, groomed the pups, and protected them. According to lead researcher Catherine Dulac, this suggests that there are “circuits in the male brain that underlie parental behavior,” but those behaviors are “normally repressed.”
“It’s grooming, it’s building a nest, it’s protecting the pups — the male is able to do all of those. What this says is that in the male brain, they have the neurons to be paternal, but somehow those neurons are repressed. But we can now say, yes, dads can do it.”- Dulac
DID YOU KNOW…that these same neurocircuits are likely present in humans? “Each time these neurons have been discovered in animals, their equivalent has been found in humans, with similar functions and generating similar behavioral disorders when absent or impaired.”
Society has begun to accept that fathers can parent just as well as mothers. Science is beginning to catch up to the modern dad, and may soon prove that even biologically, men are just as capable of being nurturing caregivers.