14 DAY TRIAL // A new paper in the journal Frontiers in Psychology explains why, more often than not, women who find themselves holding a baby in their arms are feeling like gobbling it up, regardless of whether the child belongs to them or not.
Thus, researchers say that, as far as they can tell, a baby's distinctive smell activates the same reward circuits in a woman's brain as eating something that tastes really good does.
Oddly enough, these brain circuits are the same as those that fire up when a drug addict gets a new fix.
“The olfactory - thus non-verbal and non-visual - chemical signals for communication between mother and child are intense. What we've shown for the first time is the odor of newborns - which is part of these signals - activates the neurological reward circuit in mothers,” says Dr. Johannes Frasnelli with the Montreal University.
“These circuits may especially be activated when you eat while being very hungry, but also in a craving addict receiving his drug. It is in fact the sating of desire,” the researcher goes on to detail, as cited by EurekAlert.
In order to investigate how the scent of a newborn affects a woman's brain, Dr. Johannes Frasnelli and his colleagues asked 15 women to sniff pajamas that had been worn by babies.
Of these women, the ones who had given birth some six months before taking part in this investigation experienced a sudden and noteworthy increase in the dopamine levels in their caudate nucleus, i.e. a part of the brain that fosters reward learning.
“This circuit makes us desire certain foods and causes addiction to tobacco and other drugs. Not all odours trigger this reaction. Only those associated with reward, such as food or satisfying a desire, cause this activation,” Dr. Johannes Frasnelli.
The researchers theorize that babies have evolved to elicit such a response from mothers in order to up their survival chances. Specifically, by toying with the reward circuit, babies strengthen their bond with their mother.
Further investigations are expected to determine whether or not men have similar reactions to babies and their smell.