Photo credit: Global Panorama, Flickr
Good news for Dads: Harvard researchers say the key to being a better parent is – literally – all in your head. In a study in mice, Higgins Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Howard Hughes Investigator Catherine Dulac have pinpointed galanin neurons in the brain's medial preoptic area (MPOA), that appear to regulate parental behavior. If similar neurons are at work in humans, it could offer clues to the treatment of conditions like post-partum depression. The study is described in a May 15 paper published in Nature.
"If you look across different animal species, there are some species in which the father contributes to caring for the young – sometimes the work is divided equally, sometimes the father does most of the work – and there are species in which the father does nothing," Dulac said. "The essential question is where is that variability coming from? We may be tempted to say that the mom has the neurons required to engage in parentalbehavior, and dads don't – this paper shows that's wrong."
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-05-neurons-parental-behavior-male-female.html
Abstract available at Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v509/n7500/full/nature13307.html
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