Mothers’ neural activation to own and other children’s faces: examining the association with emotional availability and caregiving history

The functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research investigating postpartum mothers’ neural activation to infant stimuli has established a specific group of brain areas implicated in the global caregiving network (Abraham, 2018; Rigo et al., 2019; Swain, 2008). The present study aimed to extend the findings to lesbian mothers (n = 8) in a later stage of parenting by examining their brain activations in response to their own versus other children’s neutral visual stimuli. Stimuli presented were video clips of their own and unfamiliar preschool-aged children with neutral facial expressions. Furthermore, it was explored how the recorded neural activations can be affected by parents’ emotional availability assessed through the Emotional Availability Scale (EAS) and parents’ personal history with caregivers assessed by the Parental Acceptance and Rejection Scale (PARQ). The results showed activation in some of the areas hypothesized and novel deactivations that previous research has not reported. Moreover, the results indicated that mothers who perceived their own mothers as hostile and aggressive were less sensitive and more intrusive in interactions with their own children. Yet, no interaction was found between PARQ: Father and EAS. Lastly, the higher the levels of mothers’ structuring measured by EAS, the lower the activation in the parahippocampal area extended to the amygdala when the mother was viewing their own child’s neutral face compared to the unfamiliar child. These findings represent the importance of perceived maternal acceptance on the child’s future caregiving behaviors, suggesting an intergenerational transmission of sensitivity.