On Friday the NYTimes published an article entitled Maternal Instinct is Wired Into the Brain. It reported the results of a Tokyo study where 13 mothers, all with 16 month old babies, watched videos of their own babies and others both smiling and crying while they were in an MRI machine. The mothers had very different brain waves when they saw their own children than when they saw others, and a stronger reaction to cries than to smiles.
Although this is an interesting study, I was kind of surprised it got NYTimes attention. 13 women is quite a small number, and the article doesn't say that they were randomly selected. I wonder, also, if they chose babies that were 16 months old in order to skip over chances of postpartum depression?
It does seem *obvious* that mothers are "hard-wired" to love their own children (even if they can't stand anyone else's!), but my humble opinion is that laypeople should be cautious when analyzing a study of this size. Narrow, shallow scientific findings are often contorted to mean things their creators never intended them to mean, and zealots eagerly seize them to be used as bludgeons in political arguments.
On the other hand, three cheers for brain studies :). They never cease to come up with something fascinating.
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