Postpartum activity in first-time fathers’ brains may prepare them for parenting

University of Southern California psychologists report that first-time fathers show stronger brain activation to their own infant than to unfamiliar infants or their romantic partner, with links to bonding and parenting stress.

Infant faces have very different proportions than adults. A baby’s head begins at approximately 25% of its future adult size, and yet the eyes are already around 75% of their adult size. With a rounded head as wide as their chest, a small chin and chubby cheeks, the collection of features that make up the infant face elicit caregiving behaviors in adults. Behaviors that studies have shown are driven in part by hormonal and neural responses.

Mothers have previously been shown to exhibit stronger responses to infant faces compared to non-mothers, with additional cognitive preferences for their own infant compared to others. Brain regions involved in emotion regulation (insula, amygdala, prefrontal cortex), reward processing (orbitofrontal cortex), and social cognition all show heightened activity in mothers interacting with their own infants. Fathers remain less studied.

In the study, “My Baby Versus the World: Fathers’ Neural Processing of Own-Infant, Unfamiliar-Infant, and Romantic Partner Stimuli,” published in Human Brain Mapping, researchers contrasted video stimuli to clarify whether fathers’ neural responses reflect infant features, personal familiarity, or self-relevance.

Parents from the greater Los Angeles area at three months postpartum completed questionnaires that included standardized assessments for postpartum bonding, bonding problems, and parenting stress.

First-time fathers (n=32) then returned at around eight months postpartum for an fMRI session at USC’s Dornslife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center. Here the fathers viewed five-second silent videos of their own infant, an unfamiliar infant, their pregnant partner, and an unfamiliar pregnant woman, rating the clips’ degree of pleasantness or unpleasantness on a -2 to +2 scale.

Univariate contrasts showed greater activation to own-infant versus unfamiliar-infant in precuneus, posterior cingulate, dorsomedial and anterior prefrontal cortex, left angular gyrus, right inferior frontal gyrus, bilateral orbitofrontal cortex, and left temporal pole.

Contrasting own-infant versus partner yielded a large cluster peaking in the precuneus and extending into cuneus, posterior cingulate, and middle occipital gyrus.

Stronger activation to own-infant in the precuneus/posterior cingulate related positively to bonding and three-month postnatal bonding and was inversely linked to parenting stress and bonding problems. For the own-infant-partner contrast, precuneus/posterior cingulate activation related positively to antenatal bonding and inversely to bonding problems.

A combined analysis separating own-infant from unfamiliar-infant plus partner showed discriminability in visual association cortex and precuneus.

Findings suggest that cortical midline mentalizing regions, alongside visual and reward areas, play a central role in first-time fathers’ processing of their own infants. Associations with bonding and parenting stress position posterior midline responses as potential cognitive markers of early adjustment to fatherhood.

© 2025 Science X Network

University of Southern California psychologists report that first-time fathers show stronger brain activation to their own infant than to unfamiliar infants or their romantic partner, with links to bonding and parenting stress.

Infant faces have very different proportions than adults. A baby’s head begins at approximately 25% of its future adult size, and yet the eyes are already around 75% of their adult size. With a rounded head as wide as their chest, a small chin and chubby cheeks, the collection of features that make up the infant face elicit caregiving behaviors in adults. Behaviors that studies have shown are driven in part by hormonal and neural responses.

Mothers have previously been shown to exhibit stronger responses to infant faces compared to non-mothers, with additional cognitive preferences for their own infant compared to others. Brain regions involved in emotion regulation (insula, amygdala, prefrontal cortex), reward processing (orbitofrontal cortex), and social cognition all show heightened activity in mothers interacting with their own infants. Fathers remain less studied.

In the study, “My Baby Versus the World: Fathers’ Neural Processing of Own-Infant, Unfamiliar-Infant, and Romantic Partner Stimuli,” published in Human Brain Mapping, researchers contrasted video stimuli to clarify whether fathers’ neural responses reflect infant features, personal familiarity, or self-relevance.

Parents from the greater Los Angeles area at three months postpartum completed questionnaires that included standardized assessments for postpartum bonding, bonding problems, and parenting stress.

First-time fathers (n=32) then returned at around eight months postpartum for an fMRI session at USC’s Dornslife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center. Here the fathers viewed five-second silent videos of their own infant, an unfamiliar infant, their pregnant partner, and an unfamiliar pregnant woman, rating the clips’ degree of pleasantness or unpleasantness on a -2 to +2 scale.

Univariate contrasts showed greater activation to own-infant versus unfamiliar-infant in precuneus, posterior cingulate, dorsomedial and anterior prefrontal cortex, left angular gyrus, right inferior frontal gyrus, bilateral orbitofrontal cortex, and left temporal pole.

Contrasting own-infant versus partner yielded a large cluster peaking in the precuneus and extending into cuneus, posterior cingulate, and middle occipital gyrus.

Stronger activation to own-infant in the precuneus/posterior cingulate related positively to bonding and three-month postnatal bonding and was inversely linked to parenting stress and bonding problems. For the own-infant-partner contrast, precuneus/posterior cingulate activation related positively to antenatal bonding and inversely to bonding problems.

A combined analysis separating own-infant from unfamiliar-infant plus partner showed discriminability in visual association cortex and precuneus.

Findings suggest that cortical midline mentalizing regions, alongside visual and reward areas, play a central role in first-time fathers’ processing of their own infants. Associations with bonding and parenting stress position posterior midline responses as potential cognitive markers of early adjustment to fatherhood.

© 2025 Science X Network