Changes in Brain Structure in Response to Parenting

Like human fathers, male marmosets help raise their young, yet the ways in which fatherhood influences the brain remain largely unknown. We show that first-time and experienced marmoset fathers have enhanced density of dendritic spines on pyramidal neurons in prefrontal cortex as compared to non-fathers. In parallel, the abundance of vasopressin V1a receptors and the proportion of V1a receptor–labeled dendritic spines increase.

Kozorovitskiy Y et al. Fatherhood affects dendritic spines and vasopressin V1a receptors in the primate prefrontal cortex [PMID: 16921371]