Gender differences in brain response to infant emotional faces

Exploring the neural processes of recognizing infant stimuli promotes better understandings of the mother-infant attachment mechanisms. Here combining Task-fMRI and resting-state fMRI investigated the effects of infants’ emotional faces on the brain activity of women and men. The task-fMRI showed that the brains of women and men reacted differently to infants’ faces, and these differential areas are in facial processing and empathetic networks. The rs-fMRI further showed that the connectivity of the default-mode network-related regions increased in women than men. These differences might facilitate women to more effective and quick adjustments in behaviors and emotions during the nurturing infant period.