Mothers' reaction to own baby smile likened to drug addiction

by Rich Bowden - Jul 9 2008, 20:40

A mother watching her own baby smile has been found to experience the lighting up of reward centres, a natural high which mimics drug addiction, according to a U.S. team of researchers.

Image: Fun With Babies. Credit: TedsBlog/flickr

Dr. Lane Strathearn, assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Texas Children's Hospital and a research associate in BCM's Human Neuroimaging Laboratory, said the relationship between mother and baby is crucial and the research gives an understanding of this and what goes wrong if that relationship is damaged."The relationship between mothers and infants is critical for child development," said Strathearn in a BCM release. "For whatever reason, in some cases, that relationship doesn't develop normally. Neglect and abuse can result, with devastating effects on a child's development."Speaking on the Australian "World Today" programme, Strathearn likened the stimulus of the baby's smile as activating "...similar sort of brain circuits as a cocaine addict getting a shot of cocaine." He added: "...for baby faces that we believe that those cues that a mother receives from her baby actually help to motivate behaviour in response to those baby faces. So care-giving behaviour, cuddling, picking up, responding to a baby's emotions," all appear to stem from the mothers' reward centres of the brain.Though similar stimuli were monitored in the mothers in response to other babies' smiles, they were nowhere near as powerful as that received when watching their own child.Strathearn and the team from Baylor College of Medicine studied 28 first-time mothers with infants aged 5 to 10 months and asked them to watch photos of both their own, and other babies, while they were in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner which measures blood flow in the brain. In the scans, areas of increased blood flow "light up," giving researchers a clue as to where brain activity takes place.The babies' photos ranged from happy, sad or neutral."Understanding how a mother responds uniquely to her own infant, when smiling or crying, may be the first step in understanding the neural basis of mother–infant attachment," said Strathearn.The report is published in this week's edition of Pediatrics.

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John GuerraJul 18th, 2008 - 19:20:26

That's nice but doesn't anyone have anythign to say about how fathers feel when their baby smiles? It's not just women who get a thrill I personally am floored by my daughter's laughter and smiles. What about that? What about paying attention to fathers so that we know we matter? I'll tell you why, it's because most studies/people don't think that fathers matter! Well, you're wrong!

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Mothers' reaction to own baby smile likened to drug addiction

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