Neurocognitive response to fearful faces in mothers

IF 2.3 3区心理学 Q2 BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Behavioural Brain Research Pub Date : 2025-08-06 DOI:10.1016/j.bbr.2025.115766

Anne Bjertrup , Julian Macoveanu , Kamilla Miskowiak

{"title":"Neurocognitive response to fearful faces in mothers","authors":"Anne Bjertrup , Julian Macoveanu , Kamilla Miskowiak","doi":"10.1016/j.bbr.2025.115766","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Emerging evidence highlights distinct neurocognitive adaptations during pregnancy and motherhood. This study investigated neural and cognitive responses to adult emotional expressions, focusing on fear and happiness, in 35 mothers with four-month-old infants and 19 control women without young children. Participants completed computerized tasks assessing accuracy in recognizing emotional facial expressions and underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while viewing fearful and happy adult faces. Compared to control women, mothers demonstrated heightened neural activation to fear versus happiness in occipital and orbitofrontal cortex, regions implicated in visual attention, emotional salience and emotion regulation, respectively. At a behavioural level, no differences in discrimination accuracy were observed between groups. However, greater activation in the orbitofrontal cortex to fearful faces in mothers correlated with higher sensitivity toward their infants during interactions. The findings suggest that enhanced neural vigilance to fear-related cues in mothers may be an adaptive mechanism supporting caregiving behaviour.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8823,"journal":{"name":"Behavioural Brain Research","volume":"495 ","pages":"Article 115766"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Behavioural Brain Research","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432825003535","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Emerging evidence highlights distinct neurocognitive adaptations during pregnancy and motherhood. This study investigated neural and cognitive responses to adult emotional expressions, focusing on fear and happiness, in 35 mothers with four-month-old infants and 19 control women without young children. Participants completed computerized tasks assessing accuracy in recognizing emotional facial expressions and underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while viewing fearful and happy adult faces. Compared to control women, mothers demonstrated heightened neural activation to fear versus happiness in occipital and orbitofrontal cortex, regions implicated in visual attention, emotional salience and emotion regulation, respectively. At a behavioural level, no differences in discrimination accuracy were observed between groups. However, greater activation in the orbitofrontal cortex to fearful faces in mothers correlated with higher sensitivity toward their infants during interactions. The findings suggest that enhanced neural vigilance to fear-related cues in mothers may be an adaptive mechanism supporting caregiving behaviour.

查看原文本刊更多论文

母亲对恐惧面孔的神经认知反应。

新出现的证据强调了怀孕和做母亲期间不同的神经认知适应。这项研究调查了35名有4个月婴儿的母亲和19名没有年幼孩子的对照组妇女对成人情绪表达的神经和认知反应，重点是恐惧和快乐。参与者完成了评估识别情绪面部表情准确性的电脑任务，并在观看恐惧和快乐的成年人面孔时接受了功能性磁共振成像。与对照组相比，母亲对恐惧和快乐表现出更强的枕叶和眶额叶皮层神经激活，这两个区域分别与视觉注意力、情绪突出和情绪调节有关。在行为水平上，两组之间的辨别准确率没有差异。然而，母亲的眼窝额叶皮层对恐惧面孔的激活程度越高，在互动过程中对婴儿的敏感度就越高。研究结果表明，母亲对恐惧相关线索的神经警觉性增强可能是一种支持照顾行为的适应性机制。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Behavioural Brain Research 医学-行为科学

CiteScore

5.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

383

审稿时长

61 days

期刊介绍： Behavioural Brain Research is an international, interdisciplinary journal dedicated to the publication of articles in the field of behavioural neuroscience, broadly defined. Contributions from the entire range of disciplines that comprise the neurosciences, behavioural sciences or cognitive sciences are appropriate, as long as the goal is to delineate the neural mechanisms underlying behaviour. Thus, studies may range from neurophysiological, neuroanatomical, neurochemical or neuropharmacological analysis of brain-behaviour relations, including the use of molecular genetic or behavioural genetic approaches, to studies that involve the use of brain imaging techniques, to neuroethological studies. Reports of original research, of major methodological advances, or of novel conceptual approaches are all encouraged. The journal will also consider critical reviews on selected topics.