In particular, Pearson’s team looked at facial expressions depicting emotional states. In an elegantly designed experiment, they showed human mothers-to-be images of human faces, and asked them to rate the emotions expressed on those faces. As pregnancy progresses, mothers become more efficient at recognizing the emotions on the faces of others. Intriguingly, the greatest recognition increase pertains to faces exhibiting dangerous conditions – fear (perhaps of a visible threat), disgust (contamination threat), and anger (direct physical threat).
Normally calm women may be disturbed to find themselves suddenly beset by new fears and catastrophic visions while pregnant. Indeed, the authors compare pregnant women’s threat-sensitivity levels to those found in people with anxiety disorders. But they suggest that the ability to recognize these threat conditions is an evolutionary adaptation to help females protect their offspring-to-be from harm.
The evolutionary tale rings true when considering post-partum primates. Anyone who has watched a human mother and her child knows that they gaze at one another in a way that suggests they are studying faces and expressions, a phenomenon examined by numerous researchers. Taking matters further, researchers have found that chimpanzee and rhesus macaque infants and mothers spend a significant amount time gazing at one another, looking into and recognizing each other’s faces. In photos, the primate mothers gazing at their infants bear a remarkable resemblance to “Madonna and Child” paintings. The researchers suggest that this emotional recognition helps with bonding and learning.
If studying the faces of offspring is mutually beneficial in the post-partum period, perhaps the increase in facial recognition during pregnancy is playing the dual role of protecting offspring from threats and preparing mothers for their unique bonding experience. That hypothesis would seem to be supported by the work of Ruth Feldman of Bar-Ilan University and colleagues, who in 2007 showed a correlation between the levels of oxytocin (the “love” and “bonding” hormone, which is also associated with the formation of breast milk) during pregnancy and the amount of time that mothers and infants spent gazing at one another. A race car peeling rubber indeed! This study, combined with Pearson’s work, makes a strong argument that not only are hormones helping pregnant females defend their infants-to-be from the dangers in the world around them, but also preparing females to be loving mothers after giving birth.
The hormones do have a downside. Some new mothers suffer from depression and in rare cases, even psychosis. Research at Tufts University and elsewhere suggests some potential animal models and endocrinological mechanisms for postpartum mental distress, broadly defined. It suggests that hormones are to blame: an acute pull-back, addict-like, from the rich concentrations of steroids that characterize pregnancy may play a role in the severity of postpartum reactions.
So what about fathers? Are the dads among us doomed to stand idly by, clueless and bereft of meaningful emotional contact, while mothers reap the endocrinological, neurological, and emotional benefits of motherhood? Take heart, XY-ers! A 2008 study similar to Pearson's found that men administered oxytocin were better able to identify happy emotions in the faces of others. So, whereas we males may not receive a boost in our threat-response abilities, hormones in men may at least allow us not to loathe the occasional requisite diaper-changing.
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13 Comments
Add CommentVery interesting article. One thing that occurred to me when reading it is that if oestrogen and progesterone help the brains of mothers develop so that they are more able to recognise emotions in the faces of others - is that why autism is more common in boys?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClare,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust wanted to say you put forth an interesting suggestion about whether that is associated with the higher prevalence of autism among boys.
Looking forward to replies from others that address this.
Best.
Clare,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of the reasons that autism has a higher prevalence rate in boys than girls is because there is a genetic link. Any developmental disorder that has a genetic component has a higher prevalence in boys than in girls (eg. ASD, ADHD, etc.) Check it out. It has to do with which genes "show" and which genes are "masked". If you have 2 X chromosomes, the "bad" genes on one chromosome will be hidden by the good genes on the other one, however when you have 1 X and 1 Y, you don't have that "back-up" chromosome to "mask" the "bad" ones... make sense?
I already know what the dramatic hormonal fluctuations of pregnancy and postpartum can do to a woman's mental and emotional state. What I wanna know is what the heck is going on now, with the dramatic hormonal fluctuations of perimenopause!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting partial research. Now how about research on the brains of men while their spouse is pregnant to see what changes naturally occur? Most men radically change their behavoir when they become daddies (unless they are real jerks). Do their brains get re-wired also or are they already prepped for baby duty by the time they are able to be fathers?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have heard or read all sorts of theories about the impact of hormones on autism but I have yet to see any real research that holds up under testing.
We are just barely scratching the surface of understanding how the body works. We need a lot more research funding in tthe sciences and a lot less politics.
dear sicily726,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe climacteric to which you refer represents a natural but significant withdrawal of both hormones and associated neurotransmitters and the neurotrophic (growth-promoting) factors that depend on them. it is not unlike a field of flowers, formerly dependent on a certain steady level of water and nutrients, responding to a drought. the symptoms you describe are reflective of a number of changes, all normal and natural, if unpleasant, and research has shown the vital role that hormones play in maintaining such brain and body basal activities of the sort that you cite. some data show that parity protects against, in part, such changes, but more work needs to be done. best of luck.
dear bucketofsquid ,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou are correct insofar as your reference to the changes that men undergo as they transition to fatherhood; there are neural changes that occur that rival what is observed in the female. they are on a continuum with the female transitioning to mother, but they have, if you will, a grey ceiling, preventing much of their movement beyond certain limits. just as the mother has a uterus and mammary glands that indicate the primary role she plays in the reproductive events, the father may want to be a "mother," in the sense that the overwhelming emotion and motivation that usually accompany that state is an attractive goal, but the biology is just not there: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is absent...
It seems to me that the reason people and events are "inscrutable" and we have to rely on intuition is that we are less in touch with our unconsciousness than we could be and should be. It's a matter of perception in a larger context, and makes us focus on the wrong problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is not a satisfactory answer. Autoimmune disorders mostly affect women and they do have a genetic component too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisP.S.: Clare raises an important issue in the role of hormones. It has been shown that oxytocin (the "love hormone") expressed more in women can be used beneficially to treat autistic men.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is not a satisfactory answer. Autoimmune disorders mostly affect women and they do have a genetic component too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegarding the "downside" of these hormones: this research is describing only the opening bars of a complex hormonal dance. In nature, and when we avoid the medicalization of birth and baby feeding, the hormones of pregnancy are followed by an even more intense surge of oxytocin during labor and birth, which is lacking when labors are induced or augmented via artificial oxytocin (a.k.a. pitocin, which can't cross the blood-brain barrier) and when pharmaceutical comfort measures interfere in the endorphin-oxytocin cycle of normal labor. After birth, breastfeeding continues to stimulate release of oxytocin along with prolactin, which is not only a calming hormone but also a potent suppressor of the menstrual cycle, thus allowing a woman's body gradually to come down off the hormonal highs of pregnancy over the course of a year or more as baby nurses and then gradually weans to solid foods.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnce we understand the normal flow of hormone states from pregnancy through birth through breastfeeding and gradual weaning, it's no surprise that hijacking the normal hormonal processes of birth and breastfeeding causes many, many women to drop off a cliff into postpartum depression. This is not a downside of the hormones of pregnancy. It's a downside of the medicalization of birth and low rates of breastfeeding.
I think men undergo "daddy brain" changes due to pheromones produced by the pregnant female. Some more so than others. There is a phenomenon of the "pregnant male" during his mate's pregnancy.
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