Is your mom warmer with her grandkids than with you? A new study says blame biology
You know that special bond your mother seems to have with your kids? The one she doesn't seem to have with anyone else -- even you?
You're not just imagining it, according to a new study.
Unlike other primates, humans rely on one another to help raise their children, and often those offspring do better when they have other adults, like their grandmothers, involved in their lives, said lead study author James Rilling, a professor of anthropology and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University in Atlanta. The importance of grandmothers can be traced neurologically, this study suggests.
Researchers found that grandmothers shown images of their biological grandchildren had a neurological response in the areas of their brain that are important for emotional empathy and motivation.
The study, published by the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, worked with 50 grandmothers who reported having positive relationships with their grandchildren and high levels of involvement with them.
The women underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures changes in blood flow that happen with brain activity, while being shown images of their grandchild, another child they didn't know, an adult they didn't know, and the same-sex parent of their grandchild. For some that was their own biological child, and for others it was their daughter- or son-in-law.
"This work points to the fact that there are important brain changes in members of a 'village' that raise a child. It's not just the brain of birthing parents and partners that change," said Jodi Pawluski, a neuroscientist and therapist based in France who was not associated with the study. "That is exciting."
More emotional response for grandchildren
Studies have examined maternal and paternal brain functions in the past, but this is one of our first glimpses into how a grandmother's brain reacts to their grandchildren, Rilling said.
"The study was partially motivated by the well-known 'grandmother hypothesis,' which posits that human female post-menopausal longevity evolved because of the benefits grandmothers were able to bestow on their grandchildren," Rilling said via email.
The novelty of the study and the nature of it being early days in brain-scan findings mean that the results are preliminary, said anthropologist and primatologist Sarah B. Hrdy, professor emerita of anthropology at the University of California, Davis, who was not associated with the study, said.
Some findings aren't surprising: Grandmothers showed more of a response when looking at their grandchildren than children they didn't know, according to the study.
Interestingly, grandmothers showed brain activity correlated with cognitive empathy more when looking at their biological children and in-laws than their grandchildren. When looking at their grandchildren, they showed stronger emotional empathy than they did with their children.
"Emotional empathy is feeling the emotions that another person is feeling. Cognitive empathy is understanding what someone is thinking or feeling and why," Rilling said.
That could mean that while grandparents were wired to seek to understand their adult children's feelings, they are more geared to an emotional response when it comes to grandchildren.
"Not only is it showing that the brain of grandmothers is activated with grandparenting, it also shows that the parental brain areas are activated late in life, or perhaps are always activated. Once a mother, always a mother," Pawluski said. "This supports and expands what others have recently reported in that there are continued effects of parenting on the brain into aging."
你妈妈对孙子孙女比对你更热情吗？一项新研究称归咎于生物学
您知道您的母亲似乎与您的孩子之间的特殊纽带吗？那个她似乎没有和其他人在一起的——甚至是你？
根据一项新研究，你不仅仅是在想象。
与其他灵长类动物不同，人类相互依赖来抚养他们的孩子，当他们的生活中有其他成年人（如他们的祖母）参与其中时，这些后代通常会做得更好，人类学教授兼人类学教授詹姆斯里林说。亚特兰大埃默里大学精神病学和行为科学专业。这项研究表明，祖母的重要性可以从神经学上追溯到。
研究人员发现，祖母展示他们的亲生孙子的图像时，他们的大脑区域会产生神经反应，这些区域对情感同理心和动机很重要。
这项由英国皇家学会会刊 B 发表的研究与 50 位祖母合作，他们报告说与孙辈的关系良好，并且与他们的参与度很高。
这些女性接受了功能性磁共振成像 (fMRI)，该成像测量了大脑活动引起的血流变化，同时向她们展示了她们的孙子、她们不认识的另一个孩子、她们不认识的成年人的图像，以及同样的-他们孙子的性父母。对于一些人来说，这是他们自己的亲生孩子，而对于另一些人来说，这是他们的女儿或女婿。
“这项工作表明，抚养孩子的‘村庄'成员的大脑发生了重要变化。改变的不仅仅是生育父母和伴侣的大脑，”法国神经科学家和治疗师乔迪·帕卢斯基 (Jodi Pawluski) 说。谁与研究无关。 “这很令人兴奋。”
对孙子的更多情绪反应
里林说，过去有研究检查过母亲和父亲的大脑功能，但这是我们第一次看到祖母的大脑如何对孙辈做出反应。
“这项研究的部分动机是著名的‘祖母假说'，该假说认为人类女性绝经后寿命的进化是由于祖母能够赋予孙子孙女的好处，”里林通过电子邮件说。
人类学家和灵长类动物学家、加州大学戴维斯分校人类学名誉教授 Sarah B. Hrdy 说，这项研究的新颖性以及它在脑部扫描结果中处于早期的性质意味着结果是初步的。跟研究说。
一些发现并不奇怪：根据这项研究，祖母在看着孙辈时比他们不认识的孩子表现出更多的反应。
有趣的是，与孙辈相比，祖母在看着自己的亲生子女和姻亲时，大脑活动与认知同理心的相关性更高。看着孙辈，他们表现出比对待孩子更强烈的情感共鸣。
“情感同理心是感受另一个人正在感受的情绪。认知同理心是理解某人的想法或感受以及原因，”里林说。
这可能意味着，虽然祖父母倾向于寻求理解成年子女的感受，但当涉及到孙子孙女时，他们更倾向于情绪反应。
“这不仅表明祖母的大脑因祖父母而被激活，还表明父母的大脑区域在生命后期被激活，或者可能总是被激活。曾经是母亲，永远是母亲，”Pawluski 说。 “这支持并扩展了其他人最近的报道，即育儿对大脑的持续影响会导致衰老。”
