3 ms·
Becoming a father shrinks your cerebrum (2022)
https://archive.is/7LHeN https://archive.is/7LHeN
- eternal_braid 6mo agoIt needs a (2002) and it is behind a paywall.
- tkcranny 6mo ago2022
- kingleopold 6mo agoarticle says Oct 21st 2022 ?
- antonvs 6mo agoPerhaps he's a father
- walletdrainer 6mo agoOne would expect that the HN users who care about such things would already be aware of the paywall on economist.com
- theonemind 6mo agoAs someone who cares about such a thing and had no awareness of that, I would tend to disagree. Nytimes gets posted enough that I have encountered the pay wall, but the economist, I’d have had to guess. I also tried to look at the article and didn’t see the year when trying to open the truncated article, and do like to know that I have started reading something old. I just don’t really agree with your comment at all from almost any angle, but I don’t think either one of us has numbers to back up anything
- npilk 6mo agohttps://archive.is/7LHeN https://archive.is/7LHeN ("This is your brain on kids!")
- dnnddidiej 6mo agoIndeed I dont daydream anymore. Wonder if these changes are more like jettisoning luxuries rather than getting dumber.
- HPsquared 6mo agoThe brain switching away from "explore" mode.
- Aurornis 6mo agoBecoming a parent changes a lot of how you think, but to be honest spending time with my kids did more to reignite my explore mode. Childlike curiosity is slightly contagious. It’s also fun to experience it by proxy through your kids seeing things for the first time.
- xenocratus 6mo agoI mostly stopped daydreaming at some point in my 20s too, after a fairly intense daydreaming life until then. Oh, and no kids yet :) so it could just be "life"
- pavel_lishin 6mo agoFather of a ten year old here; I definitely still daydream, and I think I did for most of the time I've been a father - but it's genuinely difficult to remember that sort of thing.
- trelane 6mo agoI also still daydream and have well before and after kids. If anything, sleep depravation with a newborn made it more vibrant and integrated.
- pavel_lishin 6mo agoI wonder if it's some sort of adaptive mechanism, to prevent new sleep-deprived parents from completely losing the plot. Less daydreaming might mean more paying attention to this screaming thing that just fell out of you, and to every predator it's probably attracting from miles around.
- jonplackett 6mo agoThe control group should still be sleep deprived for 6 months and see what that does to their brain.
- mynegation 6mo agoAs a father of a newborn never have I ever seen an HN comment so incisive and to the point.
- LeifCarrotson 6mo agoAs the father of a 9-year-old I have to warn you: the sleep deprivation does not end at 6 months.
- pplante 6mo agoAs a father of three, ages 4, 5.88, and 9 I can concur that the sleep deprivation doesn't improve much. Especially if they are neurodivergent.
- dotancohen 6mo ago> ages 4, 5.88 ... if they are neurodivergent. I think they may have learned something from dad.
- solnyshok 6mo agoas father of seven...
- murderous_juice 6mo ago[dead]
- rubslopes 6mo agoHappy birthday to the youngest and oldest!
- 6mo ago
- philjohn 6mo agoI'd need to read the actual paper, but isn't poor sleep also correlated with "shrinkage" in the brain? And when you have a baby, sleep is one of those things that you don't typically get enough, or high enough quality, of.
- amelius 6mo agoEvolution packed us full of control mechanisms that work against us (the individual) but in favor of the group.
- trelane 6mo agoFor women: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0d59e7wjlo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0d59e7wjlo
- vegabook 6mo agomore flawed[1] don't-have-kids "science" but then they complain about demographics. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47986349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47986349
- beshrkayali 6mo agoThe title of the article is more on the sensationalist side unfortunately, the actual paper gives a different view [1]. There are two parts worth quoting: > Although cortical reductions sometimes reflect a process of neurodegeneration, they can also be a sign of refinement and specialization of neural circuits. Adolescence, for instance, is a life period characterized by the continued elimination of redundant synapses (i.e. synaptic pruning) which parallels cognitive and emotional development (Selemon 2013). In the context of the transition to parent-hood, several examples across human and non-human mammals show functional improvements after reductions in brain markers (Pawluski et al. 2022). And: > Although we found converging evidence of cortical reductions across the two samples, a number of divergent findings also emerged. First, when disentangling the cortical volume reduction, Californian fathers displayed significant reductions in area and Spanish fathers in thickness. Changes in the area may reflect changes in the number of cells located between radial columns of the brain, while changes in thickness may reflect changes in the number of cells within ontogenic columns (Petanjek et al. 2011). Secondly, the volume of the dorsal attentional network, which supports goal-directed attention, was significantly reduced in Spanish fathers, while it did not show significant changes in Californian fathers. Combined with the default mode network, this network may control sustained attention (Spreng et al. 2010, 2013), a behavior that is often required during childrearing. It is possible that these inconsistent results at the statistical level may be due to the different scan timing windows or to cultural or behavioral differences. For example, due to more generous paternity leave policies in Spain 1: https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/33/7/4156/6691667 https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/33/7/4156/6691667
- ozozozd 6mo agoThank you!
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- zulux 6mo agoAnd grows your heart.