The Paternal Brain in Action: A Review of Human Fathers’ fMRI Brain Responses to Child-Related Stimuli

Abstract

As fathers are increasingly involved in childcare, understanding the neurological underpinnings of fathering has become a key research issue in developmental psychobiology research. This systematic review specifically focused on (1) highlighting methodological issues of paternal brain research using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and (2) summarizing findings related to paternal brain responses to auditory and visual infant stimuli. Sixteen papers were included from 157 retrieved records. Sample characteristics (e.g., fathers’ and infant’s age, number of kids, and time spent caregiving), neuroimaging information (e.g., technique, task, stimuli, and processing), and main findings were synthesized by two independent authors. Most of the reviewed works used different stimuli and tasks to test fathers’ responses to child visual and/or auditory stimuli. Pre-processing and first-level analyses were performed with standard pipelines. Greater heterogeneity emerged in second-level analyses. Three main cortical networks (mentalization, embodied simulation, and emotion regulation) and a subcortical network emerged linked with fathers’ responses to infants’ stimuli, but additional areas (e.g., frontal gyrus, posterior cingulate cortex) were also responsive to infants’ visual or auditory stimuli. This review suggests that a distributed and complex brain network may be involved in facilitating fathers’ sensitivity and responses to infant-related stimuli. Nonetheless, specific methodological caveats, the exploratory nature of large parts of the literature to date, and the presence of heterogeneous tasks and measures also demonstrate that systematic improvements in study designs are needed to further advance the field.

The Role of Paternal Involvement on Behavioral Sensitive Responses and Neurobiological Activations in Fathers: A Systematic Review

“…Overall, although some aspects related to parenthood (i.e., brain activations, hormonal pathways) may be hard-wired and biologically determined, these findings seem to corroborate the hypothesis that the activation of some Parental Brain circuits (Swain, 2011;Swain et al, 2014) might be adaptable to experiences and direct commitment in childcare (Provenzi et al, 2021). In this line, we suggest that further research on gay parents could potentially unravel the influence of caregiving experiences on different aspects of neural responsiveness related to parenthood, by ruling out potential confounding factors linked to biological factors and gendered parenting behaviors.…”

“…Importantly, the heterogeneity of the included studies and the measures used for the assessment of paternal involvement may have influenced the results obtained. For this reason, the appreciation of findings in the context of a careful description of each study is warranted (Provenzi et al, 2021 ). In the first place, it should be acknowledged that the predictive role of some confounding factors (e.g., demographic, cultural characteristics) on both paternal sensitive behaviors and neurobiological activations is hard to determine in our work.…”

“…In line with the hypothesis that neural changes may allow for better caregiving of the offspring, fathers also showed great activations in reward- and attachment-related brain regions (e.g., left Globus Pallidus, medial Orbitofrontal Cortex, left Hippocampus, bilateral inferior Frontal Gyrus, Anterior Insula) in response to their own infants (Wittfoth-Schardt et al, 2012 ). Trying to provide an accurate idea of the Parental Brain in fathers, Provenzi et al ( 2021 ) consistently reported the activation of three brain networks when fathers respond to infant cues, respectively linked to mentalization (e.g., Superior Temporal Sulcus, Medial Prefrontal Cortex), embodied simulation (e.g., Anterior Insula, Middle and Lateral Superior Frontal Gyrus, Ventral Anterior Cingulate Cortex), and emotion regulation processes (e.g., Inferior Frontal Gyrus, Orbitofrontal Cortex). In addition to these, the activation of subcortical structures (e.g., Caudate, Putamen, Globus Pallidus, thalamus, Substantia Nigra, Amygdala) have been reported in fathers.…”

“…Providing some remarkable differences between mothers and fathers, whilst fathers' neural responses to infant cues seem to rely more on socio-cognitive networks, mothers' activations mainly include limbic regions (Atzil et al, 2012 ; Rajhans et al, 2019 ). Even though this evidence is not called into question and some Parental Brain characteristics may be actually hard-wired and sex-specific, it should be acknowledged that most research in the field has failed to take the variability related to parental involvement into consideration (Provenzi et al, 2021 ). Stressing the importance of caregiving experience, it may also be the case that fathers' neuroendocrine system is responsive to committed parenting (Weisman et al, 2014 ).…”

Disentangling the Effect of Sex and Caregiving Role: The Investigation of Male Same-Sex Parents as an Opportunity to Learn More About the Neural Parental Caregiving Network

“…Generally, whilst mothers tend to activate an emotional neural circuitry of subcortical structures (i.e., Amygdala, Nucleus Accumbens, Insula and Ventral Anterior Cingulate Cortex), fathering behaviors mostly rely on the activity of socio-cognitive cortical areas (i.e., Medial Prefrontal Cortex, Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex, Dorsal-Anterior Cingulate Cortex, Superior Temporal Gyrus and Inferior Frontal Gyrus) (Atzil et al, 2012 ; Rajhans et al, 2019 ). Summarizing findings related to paternal brain responses to auditory and visual infant stimuli, Provenzi et al ( 2021 ) described three main brain networks. Specifically, the activation of Mentalization-related areas (i.e., Superior Temporal Sulcus, Medial Prefrontal Cortex) was associated with fathers responding to infant stimuli, in order to appropriately understand feelings and thoughts.…”