Sex differences in directional brain responses to infant hunger cries
Open accessAbstract
Infant cries are a critical survival mechanism that draw the attention of adult caregivers, who can then satisfy the basic needs of otherwise helpless infants. Here, we used functional neuroimaging to determine the effects of infant hunger cries on the brain activity of adults who were in a cognitively nondemanding mental state of awake rest. We found that the brains of men and women, independent of parental status (parent or nonparent), reacted differently to infant cries. Specifically, the dorsal medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate areas, known to be involved in mind wandering (the stream of thought typical of awake rest), remained active in men during exposure to infant cries, whereas in women, activity in these regions decreased. These results show sex-dependent modulation of brain responses to infant requests to be fed, and specifically, they indicate that women interrupt mind wandering when exposed to the sounds of infant hunger cries, whereas men carry on without interruption.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In 9 men and 9 women (half non-parents), more activity was seen in the dorsal medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate areas of male brains regardless of parental status.
“Studying 9 men and 9 women (half in each group non-parents), more activity was seen in the dorsal medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate areas of male brains regardless of parental status.”
From Approaching the biology of human parental attachment: Brain imaging, oxytocin and coordinated assessments of mothers and fathers (2014) · cites this paper as De Pisapia et al., 2013
Males respond differently to non-own hunger cries than mothers.
“males respond differently to non-own hunger cries than mothers (De Pisapia et al., 2013)”
From Approaching the biology of human parental attachment: Brain imaging, oxytocin and coordinated assessments of mothers and fathers (2014) · cites this paper as De Pisapia et al., 2013
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
(1969) · Cited by 18,340 · see citing works
Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain
Talairach, J., & Tournoux, P. (1988) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 11,798 · see citing works
<i>The Brain's Default Network</i>: <i>Anatomy, Function, and Relevance to Disease</i>
Buckner, R. L., Andrews‐Hanna, J. R., & Schacter, D. L. (2008) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1196/annals.1440.011 · Cited by 9,761 · see citing works
Searching for a baseline: Functional imaging and the resting human brain
Gusnard, D. A., & Raichle, M. E. (2001) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/35094500 · Cited by 3,371 · see citing works
A wandering mind is an unhappy mind
Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1192439 · Cited by 2,575 · see citing works
The neural bases of momentary lapses in attention
Weissman, D. H., Roberts, K. C., Visscher, K. M., & Woldorff, M. G. (2006) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nn1727 · Cited by 1,566 · see citing works
Cortical midline structures and the self
Northoff, G., & Bermpohl, F. (2004) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2004.01.004 · Cited by 1,446 · see citing works
Review Lecture: Mammalian mating systems
Clutton-Brock, T. H. (1989) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.1989.0027 · Cited by 1,413 · see citing works
Mazoyer, B., Zago, L., Mellet, E., Bricogne, S., Etard, O., Houdé, O., Crivello, F., Joliot, M., Petit, L., & Tzourio-Mazoyer, N. (2001) · Brain Research Bulletin · doi:10.1016/s0361-9230(00)00437-8 · Cited by 906 · see citing works
Greicius, M. D., & Menon, V. (2004) · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1162/0898929042568532 · Cited by 684 · see citing works
Interrupting the “stream of consciousness”: An fMRI investigation
McKiernan, K. A., D'Angelo, B. R., Kaufman, J. N., & Binder, J. R. (2006) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.09.030 · Cited by 443 · see citing works
Seifritz, E., Esposito, F., Neuhoff, J. G., Lüthi, A., Mustovic, H., Dammann, G., von Bardeleben, U., Radue, E. W., Cirillo, S., Tedeschi, G., et al. (2003) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/s0006-3223(03)00697-8 · Cited by 373 · see citing works
Task-unrelated thought frequency as a function of age: A laboratory study.
Giambra, L. M. (1989) · Psychology and Aging · doi:10.1037/0882-7974.4.2.136 · Cited by 290 · see citing works
An ethological analysis of human infant crying: Answering Tinbergen's four questions
Zeifman, D. M. (2001) · Developmental Psychobiology · doi:10.1002/dev.1005 · Cited by 211 · see citing works
Feldman, R. (2007) · Development and Psychopathology · doi:10.1017/s0954579407070150 · Cited by 198 · see citing works
Boukydis, C. F. Z., & Burgess, R. L. (1982) · PubMed · Cited by 141 · see citing works
Boukydis, C. F. Z., & Burgess, R. L. (1982) · Child Development · doi:10.2307/1129019 · Cited by 124 · see citing works
Deactivation of the Default Mode Network as a Marker of Impaired Consciousness: An fMRI Study
Crone, J. S., Ladurner, G., Höller, Y., Golaszewski, S. M., Trinka, E., & Kronbichler, M. (2011) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0026373 · Cited by 115 · see citing works
Neuroendocrinology of Parental Response to Baby‐Cry
Swain, J. E., Kim, P., & Ho, S. S. (2011) · Journal of Neuroendocrinology · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2826.2011.02212.x · Cited by 106 · see citing works
Zeifman, D. M. (2003) · Infant Mental Health Journal · doi:10.1002/imhj.10077 · Cited by 96 · see citing works
Swain, J. E. (2008) · Europe PMC (PubMed Central) · Cited by 89 · see citing works
Briga, M., Pen, I. R., & WRIGHT, J. M. (2012) · Biology Letters · doi:10.1098/rsbl.2012.0159 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
Pisapia, N. D., Turatto, M., Lin, P., Jovicich, J., & Caramazza, A. (2011) · Cerebral Cortex · doi:10.1093/cercor/bhr146 · Cited by 52 · see citing works
Venuti, P., Caria, A., Esposito, G., De Pisapia, N., Bornstein, M. H., & de Falco, S. (2012) · Research in Developmental Disabilities · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2012.06.011 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- [4]Whiting BB Edwards CP Children of Different Worlds 1988 Harvard University Press Cambridge, MA
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The adaptive human parental brain: implications for children's social development
Feldman, R. (2015) · Trends in Neurosciences · doi:10.1016/j.tins.2015.04.004 · Cited by 419 · see citing works
Swain, J. E., Kim, P., Spicer, J., Ho, S. S., Dayton, C. J., Elmadih, A., & Abel, K. M. (2014) · Brain Research · doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2014.03.007 · Cited by 290 · see citing works
Neurobiology of culturally common maternal responses to infant cry
Bornstein, M. H., Putnick, D. L., Rigo, P., Esposito, G., Swain, J. E., Suwalsky, J. T. D., Su, X., Du, X., Zhang, K., Cote, L. R., et al. (2017) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1712022114 · Cited by 168 · see citing works
Self-citationNeural plasticity in fathers of human infants
Kim, P., Rigo, P., Mayes, L. C., Feldman, R., Leckman, J. F., & Swain, J. E. (2014) · Social Neuroscience · doi:10.1080/17470919.2014.933713 · Cited by 164 · see citing works
Self-citationSingle-case experimental research designs.
Kazdin, A. E. (2015) · Methodological issues and strategies in clinical research (4th ed.). · doi:10.1037/14805-029 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
- Authors
- De Pisapia, N., Bornstein, M. H., Rigo, P., Esposito, G., De Falco, S., & Venuti, P.
- Affiliations
- University of Trento (IT)
- RIKEN (JP)
- Venue
- Neuroreport
- Published
- 2013-02-13
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 142-146
- ISSN
- 0959-4965 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3618419
- OpenAlex
- W2061908227
- Cited by
- 103
- References
- 24
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 3
- FWCI
- 17.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- europepmc.org
- Locations
- Neuroreport (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Institutional Research Information System (Università degli Studi di Trento) (submittedVersion)
- Padua Research Archive (University of Padova) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (ZIAHD001119)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Pharmacy › Infant Health and Development
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Music Perception
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Mind wandering and attention
- Keywords
- sex differences, brain responses, mind wandering, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, parental status, infant feeding, caregiver attention
- MeSH terms
- Acoustic Stimulation, Adult, Arousal, Brain, Brain Mapping, Crying, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Oxygen, Sex Characteristics, Linear Models
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
