The hormonal change so abrupt that occurs during the nine months of pregnancy -superior, in some cases that a woman reaches throughout her fertile life-, is directly responsible for the "madness of love" that mothers experience towards their babies Although other external factors should not be ruled out, it is pregnancy that modifies the brain system of pleasure and reinforcement in the mother, a basic and primitive system for maternal behavior in the animal kingdom, since it allows the mother to be attracted to the stimuli from breeding and initiate a series of behaviors aimed at promoting their survival .
At the epicenter of this maelstrom, is the nucleus accumbens , an area of the brain that is responsible for motivation and pleasure and in which the team of Susana Carmona , researcher at the Experimental Medicine Service of the Gregorio Marañón Hospital in Madrid and the Ciber de Mental Health (CiberSAM), with the collaboration of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, has seen changes in its volume, fundamentally decrease, and its relationship with instinctive maternal behavior.
"The hormonal boom that accompanies pregnancy - which mainly affects the mesolimbic-dopaminergic system responsible for pleasure, motivation and reinforcement, produces brain changes in the mother to the point that her behavior is organized, almost exclusively, for the development and survival of the baby, "says the researcher, who published these data in the 'Psychoneuroendocrinology' of February.
Addiction for children
Changes and decrease in brain volume have been verified by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in 25 women who were first-time mothers and 20 control women who were not mothers, recruited at the Valencian Institute of Infertility (IVI) in Barcelona.
What previous studies published in 2017 in 'Nature Neuroscience' by the same team already suggested, in that maternity caused lasting changes in the structure of the brain, has now been ratified with the decrease in the volume of the nucleus accumbens and "the demonstration that changes in this brain circuit make the baby the most relevant, pleasant and striking stimulus for the mother who modifies her behavior to be in contact with him and protect him . "
Mothers would feel a kind of addiction to their child, a fact not unusual because this same brain system - the mesolimbic-dopaminergic - is the one that is involved in other addictions - smoking, playing or using other drugs, among others - in which all brain circuits They coordinate to achieve and achieve that motivation.
Carmona explains that hormones make "falling in love" very fast. "A very famous psychologist, Urie Bronfenbrenner, said that for the baby to develop properly, at least one adult must be" mad with love "for him. It is the explanation of the neurological basis of this maternal instinctive love" that, in addition, It has been proven both in women who become pregnant naturally and in those who do so by other means, such as 'in vitro' fertilization, for example. In the case of parents or women who adopt children it seems that this infatuation also occurs, although in them, logically, "hormonal variations or brain changes would not influence, but this phenomenon would be more involved with interaction and socialization with the baby , as seen in animal models. "
Protection that is maintained
Research has also shown that the volume decreases in the nucleus accumbens are maintained over time, at least two years, according to what has been seen in the mothers' magnetic resonances , and that they could correlate with the time in which the child Begins to be more autonomous. However, the neuroscientist advances that the mothers who have participated in the study will try to follow up for six years to see if the effect is maintained, "although we suspect it may be for a lifetime."
In addition to verifying the maternal instinct, the research provides a study model in pregnancy and postpartum "with very important implications for preventing mental health problems after childbirth , such as postpartum depression, which affects one in five women, or others more serious, such as postpartum psychosis . The challenge is to develop studies that assess whether in these alterations there is a greater or lesser decrease in brain volume that accompanies the maternal instinct. "
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