Now We Know Why Do We Love Babies
By admin • Feb 27th, 2008 • Category: Medical
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Scientists may have discovered a biological basis for parental instinct.
The discovery may explain why do we instinctively treat babies as special and protect them. It’s all in the brain.
Researchers at Oxford University used a neural scan to find that a specific region of the brain (the medial orbitofrontal cortex, located just above the eyeballs) associated with emotion light up with activity within a seventh of a second of subjects seeing images of infants’ faces.
These responses are almost certainly too fast to be consciously controlled and so are probably instinctive.
However, pictures of adult faces didn’t produce the same response.
It is expected that this discovery will help in the treatment of post-natal depression which affects an estimated 13% of mothers.
The study is published in the scientific journal, PLoS ONE.
photo credit: Photo-Mojo
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