Thaindian News

Sydney, Aug 28 (IANS) A study has revealed that the brain activity of insecure mothers suggests that they are distressed when their child cries, while the opposite is true in the case of secure mothers.
We all know that parents tend to treat their children the way their parents treated them, but why?

Lane Strathearn, from the University of Queensland, may have found the answer in mothers’ brains.

“For mothers with ’secure’ attachment, we found that both happy and sad infant faces produced a reward signal in their brain, or a ‘natural high’,” Strathearn said. “However, mothers with an ‘insecure’ attachment pattern didn’t show this same brain response.

“In fact, their own infant’s crying face activated the insula, a brain region associated with feelings of unfairness, pain or disgust.

“Thus, a mother’s own experience in childhood may shape how she responds to her baby’s needs, through these changes in the brain. This may help us to better understand factors leading to child neglect.”

Conducted at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston, Texas, where Strathearn is now based, the study involved asking first-time mothers to look at their baby’s facial expressions while inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner.

Half of the women were classified as having insecure/dismissing attachment and half demonstrated secure patterns of attachment.

Seven months after giving birth, mothers were also asked to give blood before, during and after interacting with their child.

“Secure mothers showed a greater release of the hormone oxytocin when they interacted with their infant,” Strathearn said.

“This hormone is produced in the brain and released into the blood stream, and is important for childbirth, breastfeeding and maternal care,” Strathearn said.

The study was published online in Neuropsychopharmacology.