Neurobiological bases of paternal nurturance

描述（由申请人提供）：在像我们这样的现代西方社会中，在没有父亲的情况下长大，会给孩子带来许多负面的发展结果，包括药物滥用、攻击性和行为障碍、辍学和青春期危险的性行为。然而，当父亲在场时，他们并不总是乐于助人，少数甚至是虐待。另一方面，由敏感的、有教养的父亲抚养的孩子有更好的认知、行为、社会和心理结果。拟议的项目将调查敏感父亲的神经生物学基础，并确定药物干预是否可以增强它。第一个目的是调查父亲对婴儿图片和哭声刺激的神经反应与父亲在日常生活中的实际行为之间的关系，通过电子激活记录器（EAR）进行评估，EAR是一种便携式数字录音机，定期记录环境声音的简短片段，并在参与者的自然生活流中对其瞬间社会环境和互动进行不显眼的采样声学观察。此目标将使用先前收集的EAR

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In modern, western societies like ours, being raised without a father is associated with a host of negative developmental outcomes for children, including substance abuse, aggression and conduct disorder, dropping out of school and risky sexual behavior in adolescence. When fathers are present, however, they are not always helpful, and a small minority are even abusive. On the other hand, children raised by sensitive, nurturing fathers have better cognitive, behavioral, social and psychological outcomes. The proposed project will investigate the neurobiology underlying sensitive fathering and determine whether a pharmacological intervention can enhance it. The first aim is to investigate the relationship between fathers' neural responses to infant picture and cry stimuli and actual behavior of fathers in everyday life as assessed by the Electronic Activated Recorder (EAR), a portable digital audio recorder that periodically records brief snippets of ambient sounds and unobtrusively samples acoustic observations of participants' momentary social environments and interactions within the natural flow of their lives. This aim will use previously collected EAR data from 60 fathers of 1-3 year old children to code several measures of paternal behavior. Measures of paternal behavior will then be correlated with previously collected neuroimaging data from the same fathers. Aim 2 will determine if intranasal OT or AVP alter paternal neural responses to own child picture and cry stimuli. Thirty fathers with 1- 3 year old children will be imaged with fMRI as they view pictures of their own and unknown children and as they listen to unknown infant cry stimuli. Fathers will be scanned on two separate occasions; once under the influence of OT (n=15) or AVP (n=15), and once under the influence of a placebo. Order of administration will be counterbalanced across subjects. Ultimately, it is hoped that interventions like these will improve children's mental and physical health by virtue of their effects on the bran physiology and behavior of at-risk fathers (e.g., abusive fathers, fathers with post-partum depression).