ArticleSocial cognitive and affective neuroscience2019
Exploring the neural basis for paternal protection: an investigation of the neural response to infants in danger.
Article in Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- The paternal brain: longitudinal insights into structural and functional plasticity and attachment over 24 weeks postpartum.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- A holistic review of fatherhood in humans and non-human animals: mechanisms of fatherhood, effects on fathers themselves, and interactions of fathers with others.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- The Neural Basis of Human Fatherhood: A Unique Biocultural Perspective on Plasticity of Brain and Behavior.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2022Review
- Fathers' involvement in early childcare is associated with amygdala resting-state connectivity.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2022Article
- Exploring the hormonal and neural correlates of paternal protective behavior to their infants.Developmental psychobiology · 2021Article
- White matter integrity moderates the relation between experienced childhood maltreatment and fathers' behavioral response to infant crying.Developmental psychobiology · 2021Article
- Plasticity of the paternal brain: Effects of fatherhood on neural structure and function.Developmental psychobiology · 2021Review
- The Paternal Brain in Action: A Review of Human Fathers' fMRI Brain Responses to Child-Related Stimuli.Brain sciences · 2021Review
- Fathers today: design of a randomized controlled trial examining the role of oxytocin and vasopressin in behavioral and neural responses to infant signals.BMC psychology · 2019Article
- Birth of a Father: Fathering in the First 1,000 Days.Child development perspectives · 2019Article
- Vasopressin Differentially Affects Handgrip Force of Expectant Fathers in Reaction to Own and Unknown Infant Faces.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Perceiving potential threat to an infant and responding to it is crucial for offspring survival and parent-child bonding. Using a combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging and multi-informant reports, this longitudinal study explores the neural basis for paternal responses to threat to infants pre-natally (N = 21) and early post-natally (n = 17). Participants viewed videos showing an infant in danger and matched control videos, while instructed to imagine that the infant was their own or someone else's. Effects were found for infant-threatening vs neutral situations in the amygdala (region-of-interest analyses) and in clusters spanning cortical and subcortical areas (whole-brain analyses). An interaction effect revealed increased activation for own (vs unknown) infants in threatening (vs neutral) situations in bilateral motor areas, possibly indicating preparation for action. Post-natal activation patterns were similar; however, in part of the superior frontal gyrus the distinction between threat to own and unknown infant faded. Fathers showing more protective behavior in daily life recruited part of the frontal pole more when confronted with threat to their own vs an unknown infant. This exploratory study is the first to describe neural mechanisms involved in paternal protection and provides a basis for future work on fathers' protective parenting.
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