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Maternal Instict is Wired Into the Brain

Posted by: biologyblog | March 23, 2008 | 2 Comments |



by Missy

There soon may be a very good possibility that understanding human maternal behavior will occur. Scientists put together an experiment to try and prove that the mother’s brain is connected to her motherly instincts. In this experiment the scientists’ videotaped mothers and their children interacting while they were together and watched the smiles and then took the babies away from their mother and videotaped them crying. They allowed the mothers to watch all of the children including their own and did an MRI on each woman while this occurred. Results showed that when a mother saw the video of their own child crying or smiling their brain pattern was very different from when they saw pictures of their other children. The scientists came up with this result, “to be biologically meaningful in terms of adaptation to specific demands associated with successful infant care.”

I think that this article caught my eye because I never really thought about how maternal instincts came about. Because the baby is part of the mother for nine months I can understand how thought patterns could be attached to one another. I feel like this is also often seen in twins because they share the same DNA so they often share thoughts and instincts. This study said that is could be helpful in developing treatments for various mother-child related issues such as diseases. I was unaware that learning about the affects of our mind on our body could have such a huge impact. I would really like to learn more about this topic so if anyone finds anything else please add to mine.

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Having a fetus inside your womb for nine months obviously causes an inexplainable emotional attachment between mother and child. However in small portions of heartless women this is not the case, which is why adoption, abortion, killing and mistreatment of babies occurs from parents. On the other hand as stated above maternal instincts are very powerful and reminds me of my sister. Growing up as the youngest child I always wished my eldest sister would become pregnant and give me a niece, but she had other plans always claming she did not want any children of her own. She always attempted to prevent it a all cause, finally after a year of marriage she became pregnant and had her child. My sister did a total change when the baby was born. Before her daughter was born she was selfish, aggresive and rude. Now she has become all about her daughter, loving and caring; totally nurturing. Honestly nobody thought that she would be such a maternal/nurturing mother, but she is great with the baby and has shift her life goals to providing the best atmosphere and conditions for her babies life.

Mothers having a maternal instinct to their child crying does not surprise me, since the baby has lived inside the mother’s fetus for the past nine months and they are ususally the first face/voice the baby sees/hears once out of the stomach. I enjoyed reading this study that Missy found because like her I always knew that as a mother you have a huge connection between you and the child but never knew how doctors could scientifically prove these actions.

In this study they focus on babies yet I wonder if mothers still have maternal instinct with their teenage child or adult child.(I will def. try to find a study on this) For example, a couple of years back my friend became very ill at school and her mother had told me that she knew something was wrong with her daughter right away even before my friend picked up the phone to call her. She said as a mother “you just know”. I find the connection between a mother and a child very interesting, amazing, and something I would like to learn more about.

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