A Parenting & kids forum. ParentingBanter.com

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » ParentingBanter.com forum » alt.support » Child Support
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

This is your brain. This is your brain without your Father..



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old October 29th 09, 10:54 PM posted to alt.child-support
Dusty
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 340
Default This is your brain. This is your brain without your Father..

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...861197926.html

This Is Your Brain Without Dad
By SHIRLEY S. WANG

Conventional wisdom holds that two parents are better than one. Scientists
are now finding that growing up without a father actually changes the way
your brain develops.

German biologist Anna Katharina Braun and others are conducting research on
animals that are typically raised by two parents, in the hopes of better
understanding the impact on humans of being raised by a single parent. Dr.
Braun's work focuses on degus, small rodents related to guinea pigs and
chinchillas, because mother and father degus naturally raise their babies
together.

When deprived of their father, the degu pups exhibit both short- and
long-term changes in nerve-cell growth in different regions of the brain.
Dr. Braun, director of the Institute of Biology at Otto von Guericke
University in Magdeburg, and her colleagues are also looking at how these
physical changes affect offspring behavior.

Their preliminary analysis indicates that fatherless degu pups exhibit more
aggressive and impulsive behavior than pups raised by two parents.

In a study the researchers presented at the Society for Neuroscience meeting
in Chicago earlier this month and recently published in the journal
Neuroscience, half the degus were raised with two parents, while the others
were raised by a single mother, the father having been removed from the cage
one day after the birth of his offspring.

Dr. Braun and her colleagues found that in the two-parent families, the degu
mothers and fathers cared for their pups in similar ways, including sleeping
next to or crouching over them, licking and grooming them, and playing with
them. The fathers even exhibited a "nursing-type" position.

When the mother was a single parent, the frequency of her interactions with
her pups didn't change much, which means that those pups experienced
significantly less touching and interaction than those with two parents.

The researchers then looked at the neurons-cells that send and receive
messages between the brain and the body-of some pups at day 21, around the
time they were weaned from their mothers, and others at day 90, which is
considered adulthood for the species.

Neurons have branches, known as dendrites, that conduct electrical signals
received from other nerve cells to the body, or trunk, of the neuron. The
leaves of the dendrites are protrusions called dendritic spines that receive
messages and serve as the contact between neurons.

Dr. Braun's group found that at 21 days, the fatherless animals had less
dense dendritic spines compared to animals raised by both parents, though
they "caught up" by day 90.

However, the length of some types of dendrites was significantly shorter in
some parts of the brain, even in adulthood, in fatherless animals.

"It just shows that parents are leaving footprints on the brain of their
kids," says Dr. Braun, 54 years old.

The neuronal differences were observed in a part of the brain called the
amygdala, which is related to emotional responses and fear, and the
orbitofrontal cortex, or OFC, the brain's decision-making center.


'A Horse Without a Rider'

The balance between these two brain parts is critical to normal emotional
and cognitive functioning, according to Dr. Braun. If the OFC isn't active,
the amygdala "goes crazy, like a horse without a rider," she says. In the
case of the fatherless pups, there were fewer dendritic spines in the OFC,
while the dendrite trees in the amygdala grew more and longer branches.

A preliminary analysis of the degus' behavior showed that fatherless animals
seemed to have a lack of impulse control, Dr. Braun says. And, when they
played with siblings, they engaged in more play-fighting or aggressive
behavior.

In a separate study in Dr. Braun's lab conducted by post-doctoral researcher
Joerg Bock, degu pups were removed from their caregivers for one hour a day.
Just this small amount of stress leads the pups to exhibit more hyperactive
behaviors and less focused attention, compared to those who aren't
separated, Dr. Braun says. They also exhibit changes in their brain.

The basic wiring between the brain regions in the degus is the same as in
humans, and the nerve cells are identical in their function. "So on that
level we can assume that what happens in the animal's brain when it's raised
in an impoverished environment ... should be very similar to what happens in
our children's brain," Dr. Braun says.

Other researchers, such as Xia Zhang, a senior scientist at the University
of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research, and his colleagues in China,
have observed different consequences using voles, mouselike rodents that
also naturally co-parent. (Fewer than 10% of species raise their offspring
with two parents.)

Voles deprived of their fathers-either from birth or later on in
childhood-exhibited more anxious behaviors and were less social, spending
less time engaging with stranger voles that were placed in their cage,
according to a study by Dr. Zhang and his colleagues that was published in
July in the journal Behavioral Processes.

Of course, the frontal cortex-where thinking and decision-making take
place-is more complex in humans than it is in other animals. Thus, says Dr.
Braun, it is important to be "really careful" about extrapolating the recent
findings to human populations.

"The minute you get into stuff with extensive social and environmental
components, the social differences between humans and animals are massive,"
says Simon Chapple, a senior economist in the social policy division of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the 30-country
grouping of the world's largest economies.

It remains an "open verdict" whether single parenthood causes these bad
outcomes, or is merely associated with them, says Dr. Chapple.


Risk of Delinquency

Still, the prevalence of single-parent households has researchers looking at
possible consequences for children. An OECD report found that just 57% of
children in the U.S. live with both parents, among the lowest percentages of
the world's richest nations.

The report, which sparked some controversy when it was released in
September, found that children in single-parent households have an increased
risk of delinquency and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD,
as well as poorer scholastic performance.

The OECD also analyzed data from 122 separate studies and found that there
was variability in the negative effects on children of living in a
single-parent home; on average, the OECD found, the magnitude of the impact
was relatively small. On a standardized intelligence test with a median
score of 100 points, for example, a child in a single-parent family would be
about 3.5 points worse off than a similar child in a two-parent family,
according to Dr. Chapple, who co-wrote the report.

Dr. Braun's goal for future research is to figure out whether degu pups'
brains can be rewired by introducing a substitute caregiver, such as a
grandmother, or whether other social and emotional enrichment can help
"repair" the fatherless pups, she says. Human children may be sent to day
care, for instance, which can help them form stable friendships with their
peers and other adults.

The bottom line, says Dr. Braun, is that parents need to fuel their
children's brains with talk, touch and sensitive stimulation that involves
give and take.

Parents, she says, "are the sculptors of their children's brains."

 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Brain Speed gene joyce Spanking 0 January 19th 07 02:31 PM
fried brain [email protected] Spanking 0 May 30th 06 09:09 AM
UCLA Study: Sight of YenciePooPoo Triggers Humor in Brain [was: UCLA Study: Sight of Blacks Triggers Alarm in Brain] R. Steve Walz Solutions 0 March 19th 06 07:31 AM
Whole Brain Education chris General 0 October 12th 05 04:39 AM
water on the brain Ronni Kids Health 4 January 2nd 04 09:24 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 04:55 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 ParentingBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.