CAREER: Brain, Biology, and Behavior Over the Transition to Fatherhood

父亲参与家庭生活对孩子的一生都有好处。例如，有父亲参与的孩子在入学准备、身体健康、同伴关系、对精神病理的适应能力以及长期的经济和职业成果方面表现出改善。然而，令人惊讶的是，人们对预测父亲是否以及如何成功过渡到为人父母的因素知之甚少。和母亲一样，父亲也会受到新生儿到来的心理和生理影响。例如，准爸爸和新爸爸会经历荷尔蒙的变化，他们大脑的结构和活动也会发生变化。该项目绘制了准爸爸们在第一个孩子出生前后的变化图表，并探讨了荷尔蒙和大脑变化的哪些方面最有可能产生积极的养育影响，从而优化婴儿的发育。这项名为HATCH的研究旨在了解父亲的大脑和身体是如何为为人父母做准备的。准异性夫妇（都是第一次为人父母）将完成五项评估：当面产前（怀孕中后期）；围产期（出生1-2天内）和产后（出生后6个月）就诊；并在出生后3个月和1年分别进行问卷调查。皮质醇，睾酮，催产素和催乳素将在每次就诊时从父亲和母亲身上取样。这些技术可以追踪个体激素随时间变化的模式，以及夫妻体内激素的同步。研究者还将通过磁共振成像（MRI）扫描协议收集神经数据，该协议包括高分辨率结构扫描和静息状态扫描，以评估大脑结构和连接的变化，以及评估社会认知的几个功能任务。与养育子女、夫妻关系质量、婴儿健康和发育相关的结果将通过录像、实验室互动以及自我报告问卷来衡量。这个项目将是迄今为止最大的关于新父母激素的研究，也是第一个收集孩子出生前后父亲纵向结构和功能MRI数据的研究。教育父母关于育儿及其荷尔蒙和神经影响的机会也做出了宝贵的贡献。

Father involvement in families benefits children across the lifespan. For example, children with involved fathers show improvements in school readiness, physical health, peer relationships, resilience to psychopathology, and long-term economic and occupational outcomes. However, surprisingly little is known about the factors that predict whether and how fathers successfully transition to parenthood. Like mothers, fathers are affected both psychologically and physiologically by the arrival of a new child. For example, expectant and new fathers experience hormonal changes, and the structure and activity in their brains change as well. This project charts changes in individual fathers-to-be over time prior to and then after their first child is born, and explores which aspects of hormonal and brain changes are most likely to lead to positive parenting influences that optimize their babies' development. The HATCH (Hormones Across the Transition to Parenthood) study seeks to understand how fathers' brains and bodies prepare to parent. Expectant opposite-sex couples (all first-time parents) will complete five assessments: in-person prenatal (mid-to-late pregnancy); perinatal (within 1-2 days of birth), and postpartum (six months after birth) visits; and additional follow-up questionnaires at 3 months and one year after birth. Cortisol, testosterone, oxytocin, and prolactin will be sampled from the father and mother at each visit. These allow tracking of individual patterns of hormonal change over time, and hormonal synchrony within couples. The investigator will also collect neural data through a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning protocol that includes a high-resolution structural scan and resting state scan to assess changes in brain structure and connectivity, and several functional tasks that assess social cognition. Outcomes related to parenting, couple relationship quality, and infant health and development will be measured through videotaped, in-lab interactions as well as through self-report questionnaires. This project will be the largest study of hormones in new parents to date, and the first study to collect longitudinal structural and functional MRI data from fathers before and after their child's birth. The opportunity to educate parents regarding parenting and its hormonal and neural implications also makes valuable contributions.