Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 56, Issue 4, 15 August 2004, Pages 225-232
Biological Psychiatry

Mothers' neural activation in response to pictures of their children and other children

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2004.05.017Get rights and content

Background

Considerable literature has focused on neural responses evoked by face viewing. We extend that literature and explore the neural correlates of maternal attachment with an fMRI study in which mothers view photographs of their own children.

Method

Seven mothers performed a one-back repetition detection task while viewing photographs of their own child, friends of their child, unfamiliar children, and unfamiliar adults.

Results

Viewing one's own child versus a familiar child was associated with activation in the amygdala, insula, anterior paracingulate cortex, and posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS). Viewing familiar versus unfamiliar children elicited increased activation in regions associated with familiarity in adults. Viewing unfamiliar children versus unfamiliar adults was associated with activation in the fusiform gyrus, intraparietal sulcus, precuneus, and posterior STS.

Conclusions

The sight of one's own child versus that of a familiar child activates regions that mediate emotional responses (amygdala, insula) and are associated with theory of mind functions (anterior paracingulate cortex, posterior superior temporal sulcus). These activations may reflect the intense attachment, vigilant protectiveness, and empathy that characterize normal maternal attachment. The sight of an unfamiliar child's face compared with that of an unfamiliar adult engages areas associated with attention as well as face perception.

Section snippets

Subjects

The study was approved by the National Institute of Mental Health Institutional Review Board, and all subjects gave written informed consent before participating. Subjects were recruited by advertisement and were paid for their participation. Participants were right-handed women aged 20–40 years whose firstborn (nonadopted) child was 5–12 years old. Handedness was assessed by self-report, and vision 20/30 or better was ascertained by use of a Snellen eye chart. All subjects were without

Results

Ten women who met inclusion criteria were scanned. Data from three subjects were excluded from further analysis. In one, there was significant imaging artifact. In two others, there were no response differences for faces, averaging over familiar and unfamiliar faces, compared with scrambled images, calling into question the compliance of the subjects with the task. This contrast (i.e., faces vs. scrambled images) is orthogonal to the contrasts of interest for our study of the effect of

Discussion

The results of this study show that simple viewing of one's child's face evoked a unique pattern of neural responses in mothers that may reflect how the maternal relationship differs from other social attachments. This pattern was revealed by comparing neural activation while viewing one's own child to activation while viewing another very familiar child with whom the mother does not have a biological relationship (i.e., her child's friend). Viewing one's own child evoked stronger responses in

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