Mother Brain: How Neuroscience Is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood by Chelsea Conaboy

健康和科学记者切尔西-科纳博伊(Chelsea Conaboy)揭露了 “母性本能 “的概念，并讲述了一个关于成为父母意味着什么的新故事。

科纳博伊预计，随着她孩子的出生，事情会发生变化。她没有想到的是她会有多么不同的感觉。但她很快就会发现这背后是什么：她的大脑在变化。尽管科纳博伊对无尽的脏尿布、不眠之夜和抱着新生儿的喜悦有所准备，但她没有预料到自我的这种转变，它既深刻又令人迷惑。母亲的大脑》是对父母大脑的突破性探索，从复杂的现实中解开了阴险的迷思。

在荷尔蒙和婴儿提供的大量刺激的驱动下，新父母经历了重大的结构和功能变化。这些神经生物学变化帮助所有的父母–不管是分娩还是其他–在那些紧张的最初日子里适应，并为学习如何满足孩子的需求的漫长时期做好准备。怀孕在大脑解剖学上产生了如此重大的变化，研究人员可以很容易地将那些有过怀孕的人和没有怀孕的人区分开来。而所有高度参与的父母，无论他们的养育之路如何，都会发展出类似的照顾电路。然而，这门新兴的科学为广泛的亲子关系经验提供了关键的见解，从它在塑造人性方面的更大作用到我们个人情感的强度，在关于亲子关系的公共对话中大多没有提及。

今天存在于科学中的故事，远比母亲靠本能涌现的想法更有意义。科纳博伊将最新的神经科学和社会心理学与新的报道交织在一起，揭示了意想不到的好处，几代人的科学忽视，以及关于父母身份的强有力的新叙述。

Health and science journalist Chelsea Conaboy explodes the concept of “maternal instinct” and tells a new story about what it means to become a parent.

Conaboy expected things to change with the birth of her child. What she didn’t expect was how different she would feel. But she would soon discover what was behind this: her changing brain. Though Conaboy was prepared for the endless dirty diapers, the sleepless nights, and the joy of holding her newborn, she did not anticipate this shift in self, as deep as it was disorienting. Mother Brain is a groundbreaking exploration of the parental brain that untangles insidious myths from complicated realities.

New parents undergo major structural and functional brain changes, driven by hormones and the deluge of stimuli a baby provides. These neurobiological changes help all parents—birthing or otherwise—adapt in those intense first days and prepare for a long period of learning how to meet their child’s needs. Pregnancy produces such significant changes in brain anatomy that researchers can easily sort those who have had one from those who haven’t. And all highly involved parents, no matter their path to parenthood, develop similar caregiving circuitry. Yet this emerging science, which provides key insights into the wide-ranging experience of parenthood, from its larger role in shaping human nature to the intensity of our individual emotions, is mostly absent from the public conversation about parenthood.

The story that exists in the science today is far more meaningful than the idea that mothers spring into being by instinct. Weaving the latest neuroscience and social psychology together with new reporting, Conaboy reveals unexpected upsides, generations of scientific neglect, and a powerful new narrative of parenthood.

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