Specific Maternal Brain Responses to Their Own Child’s Face: An fMRI Meta-Analysis
Publication Date
3-2019
Document Type
Article
Organizational Units
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology
Keywords
Maternal brain, Own child, Infant face, Left hemisphere, Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Meta-analysis
Abstract
How special is her own child to a mother? Research that has focused on mothers’ brain responses to their own child has revealed the involvement of multiple subcortical and cortical brain regions, but less is known about which brain regions are systematically activated across these studies. This meta-analysis aims to identify specific neural regions associated with “own child” compared to “other child”. To ensure the consistency of the types of child stimuli across studies, the analysis focused on studies using neutral to positive visual stimuli of own and other children. Viewing their own child is associated with enhanced cerebral activation in cortical and subcortical regions including the midbrain, amygdala, striatum, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and insula. These regions are involved in reward and maternal motivation and promoting approach behavior as well as caregiving. Interestingly, own child faces activate regions in the left hemisphere more than in the right hemisphere in mothers. The current results may support the better understanding of deviation from expected maternal brain responses to own child, which could further inform neurological markers for innovative parental screening and intervention.
Copyright Date
12-14-2018
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
All Rights Reserved.
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by Elsevier Inc. User is responsible for all copyright compliance. This article was originally published as:
Rigo, P., Kim, P., Esposito, G., Putnick, D. L., Venuti, P., & Bornstein, M. H. (2019). Specific maternal brain responses to their own child’s face: An fMRI meta-analysis. Developmental Review, 51, 58-69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2018.12.001
Rights Holder
Elsevier Inc.
Provenance
Received from CHORUS
Language
English (eng)
Publication Title
Developmental Review
Volume
51
First Page
58
Last Page
69
ISSN
1090-2406
Recommended Citation
Rigo, P., Kim, P., Esposito, G., Putnick, D. L., Venuti, P., & Bornstein, M. H. (2019). Specific maternal brain responses to their own child’s face: An fMRI meta-analysis. Developmental Review, 51, 58-69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2018.12.001