Evidence for a Caregiving Instinct: Rapid Differentiation of Infant from Adult Vocalizations Using Magnetoencephalography

Abstract

Crying is the most salient vocal signal of distress. The cries of a newborn infant alert adult listeners and often elicit caregiving behavior. For the parent, rapid responding to an infant in distress is an adaptive behavior, functioning to ensure offspring survival. The ability to react rapidly requires quick recognition and evaluation of stimuli followed by a co-ordinated motor response. Previous neuroimaging research has demonstrated early specialized activity in response to infant faces. Using magnetoencephalography, we found similarly early (100–200 ms) differences in neural responses to infant and adult cry vocalizations in auditory, emotional, and motor cortical brain regions. We propose that this early differential activity may help to rapidly identify infant cries and engage affective and motor neural circuitry to promote adaptive behavioral responding, before conscious awareness. These differences were observed in adults who were not parents, perhaps indicative of a universal brain-based “caregiving instinct.”

The neural basis of responsive caregiving behaviour: Investigating temporal dynamics within the parental brain

“…This has led some authors to suggest that this reactivity indicates a preparatory motor response [99], initiated by biologically salient stimuli [100]. In line with this proposal, using MEG, we also observed early differential responding, occurring at around 180 ms to infant vocalisations, localized to motor cortex [96]. In addition, another recent study using transcranial magnetic stimulation demonstrated enhanced motor evoked potentials 100-200 ms after hearing infant cries [an effect which may be specific to female listeners; [101]].…”

“…This suggests that the specific configuration of infant facial features is critical for eliciting such early neural responses. Extending this work to the auditory domain, we compared neural responses to infant and adult cry vocalisations [96]. Again, we observed a peak of early differential activity localized to the OFC (125-135 ms), as well as a second peak of differential activity slightly later in time (190-200 ms).…”

“…As the infant's perceptual and communicative skills change, parents automatically, unconsciously adapt their own interactive style, often referred to as 'intuitive parenting' [94]]. C-D) Differential cortical reactivity to infant and adult cry vocalisations was also observed in the OFC and temporal lobe regions, peaking around 130 ms [96]. [106,107].…”

On Cuteness: Unlocking the Parental Brain and Beyond

“…The antecedents to these capacities, particularly attentional focus, are found even in the brain processes of non-parents [15, 58]. …”

“…Both negative and positive infant stimuli are important for the fast responses involved in caregiving [14, 37]. Negative stimuli, such as crying, have been intensively investigated for their role in rapidly instigating and sustaining caregiving [37, 58, 65]. Positive stimuli, such as cute smiling infant faces and babbling, are equally able to incite fast brain responses [14, 15, 37].…”