Baby’s Smile ‘Like An Addictive Drug’ - With Video
By Tamara McLean (The Australian)
A BABY’S smile gives a new mother a high like a drug hit and is equally addictive, a study of the female brain shows.
Neural scans on women help explain the extremely strong bond between mother and baby by showing how images of the infant affect the brain.
A study involving 28 first-time mothers shows that when a woman looks at a photo of her baby smiling the reward centres of her brain light up.
These regions, called the substantia nigra, the striatum and the frontal lobe, are involved in emotion processing, cognition and behavioural outputs.
Lead researcher Lane Strathearn, a Queenslander now based in the US, said these areas had also been activated in experiments associated with drug addiction.
“It may be that seeing your own baby’s face is like a natural high,” said Dr Strathearn, who is based at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.
The study, published in the journal Paediatrics, showed this maternal activation was strongest with smiling faces.
Photos of babies crying did not evoke the same brain response.
In fact, there was little difference in mothers’ brains when they saw their own babies’ crying face compared to that of an unknown child, Dr Strathearn said.
The findings could help scientists explain the inner workings of that critical mother-infant bond.
“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,” he said.
It could also help shed light on how the bond fails to form in some cases.
“The relationship between mothers and infants is critical for child development,” Dr Strathearn said.
“For whatever reason, in some cases, that relationship doesn’t develop normally and neglect and abuse can result, with devastating effects on a child’s development.”
Yeah, but this is what ‘crack mom’ sees …
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nice pics, I used to like them !
now, I don’t remember ho it’s like, I’ll see next year, dunno yet, how I’ll feel it
though, I still recall that you could find the whole humanity looking at you in babies eyes ; they have an universal expression. It’s also that expression that the painters try to transcript when they paint a person
July 14th, 2008 at 5:14 pmI gotta admit … the three most beautiful and thrilling moments of my life were the very first real smiles from my three baby daughters …
especially my third ’special needs’ daughter because we did not know what to expect from her and her delays and what she perceived and understood … not only that, but seconds after she gave me that first genuine smile and I was looking down into her face and let out the “Mommy ‘awwww!!!’ ” she gave me another smile … and Mommy cried.
July 14th, 2008 at 5:51 pmOh yes, there’s nothing like a baby’s smile or their laughter. Or that little screaming/squealing thing they start doing around 4 months. It’s like their voice suddenly pops out of their mouth and they startle themselves! But once they get going, Katie bar the door!
Yeah, hell, I’m smiling just thinking about it.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:15 pmThat vid is kinda perverse! “This is your maternal instinct on drugs!”
July 14th, 2008 at 10:20 pm