New studies suggest the maternal instinct is not unique to women. Mens brains also change as a take care of children and also suffer from postpartum depression. David levine experienced this first hand after the birth of his son. He joins me today to talk about his experience. Also here to talk about that are a Remarkable Group of scientists, Catherine Dulac, Susanne Shultz, Charles Nelson margaret spinelli, and my cohost, dr. Eric kandel. He is a Howard Hughes medical investigator. Im pleased to have all of them here at this table this evening. Guest in discussing the biology of parenting, we are going to discuss a number of topics. One is the remarkable similarity of parenting throughout the animal kingdom. Were also going to discuss parental and collect and how discuss parental neglect and how disasters that can be. Were also going to look at the changes that occur imposed partum depression. In the last program, we considered the biology of aggression and we learned from David Andersons work that the hypothalamus is concerned with aggression. There are nerves in the hypothalamus recruited for aggression and they are located right next to rons concerned neurons concerned with mating. Moreover, there is a population in between that can respond to either of those two instinctual drives depending on the intensity of the stimulation. If you stimulate weekly, you recruit mating behavior. If you stimulate strongly, you induce fighting. This prospect of having cells mediating different aspects is the number one characteristic of the hypothalamus and part of parenting. Catherine dulac has discovered there are two populations of cells those concerned with parenting and those concerned with parental neglect. This has opened up a whole inquiry into the nature of the biology of parenting and we are learning a great deal about what leads to Good Parenting and what leads to parental neglect and what the consequences are. The interest in this began much earlier, in the early 1940s. A psychoanalyst turned out a remarkable study. He studied children isolated from their mothers at birth, living in two very different environment. One environment was connected with a prison where the women delivered and there was a nursery. The other was a founding home in which children were dropped off because they were abandoned by their parents or by their mother. The two institutions functioned very differently. In the nursing home, the mothers themselves took care of the infants. Because these were special times during the day they were allowed to interact with their infants they bestowed a lot of attention and affection on the kids. In the founding home, there were nurses assigned to the children and one nurse took care of seven children. As a result, he child received a limited amount of attention and lived in relative social and sensory deprivation. When these kids were examined one year later, the differences were quite apparent. The kids in the nursing home were like kids raised in manhattan they were happy they interacted well with the people around them. The kids at the founding home were anxious and not very curious about what was going on around them. At ages two and three, the difference is even more dramatic. The kids in nursing home in the nursing home talked and were gregarious with one another. The kids in the founding home, most of them could not walk, most of them could not talk and those that could talk could only express themselves with a few words. Subsequent studies have shown there is a critical time of development that if you deprive children of appropriate interaction or contact it affects them for the rest of their lives. A comparable time of isolation in later life has very little effect. So were going to have a wonderful discussion about these topics and we have five spectacular people here. We have Catherine Dulac who made this wonderful discovery. We have Susanne Shultz who has been interested in the evolution of parental behavior and hormonal changes in parenting. Chuck nelson has been studying a remarkable orphanage in romania in which children have lived in surprisingly isolated conditions. He is not only described the cognitive alterations but shown alterations in brain function and structure as a result. Mag spinelli is a psychiatrist like myself, except competent. Shes interested in postpartum depression and will tell us about hormonal changes associated with it and some of the things likely to increase the likelihood of of depression. 10 to 20 of women come down with postpartum depression. It also occurs in men and david is a person who suffered from this. The reason one doesnt know more about this is because most men are reluctant to discuss it. We are fortunate to have david here who is a physician and pediatrician and has the courage to discuss it, which is not only wonderful for us but beneficial for other people who might suffer from postpartum depression to realize that to talk about it is normal. This is nothing to be ashamed of and it may be helpful for both the person who suffers from it and the people around him. We are in for a terrific program that could make us better parents, grandparents and godparents. Charlie let me ask this question of how we behave as parents is wired into the brain, a central aspect of our conversation. Guest human parents nurture their young and these behaviors are essential to development of the child. In addition, parenting is one of the strongest and most enduring social bonds in human societies. Remarkably, parental behavior is widely concerned in the mammal kingdom. Females lactate and take primary responsibility of frontal care as can be seen in this very nice slide, the female chimpanzee is watching over the first step of her child. Females are very maternal not only in mammals but in some species of birds, frogs, reptiles and insects. What about fathers . The contribution of males is very vulnerable. In some species, as seen here in these silverback mountain gorillas, and some species males are paternal, they nurture their young. In other, males attacked the children and sometimes kill them. I am a narrow biologists neor obiologist. Try to understand the basic pilot g of parental behavior. We would like to identify the brain areas involved in driving parental behavior and we would like to understand how these rain areas are regulated. In order to have animals that are parenting and some that are neglecting their infants. In females, mothers as well as nonmothers are spontaneously maternal, which means when they are put in the presence, they will put them in the nest and huddle with them. In contrast, males are infanticide. A will regularly attack the pups and kill them. However, males that have access to the females become paternal free weeks after mating with the female which corresponds exactly to the gestation time. In other words, males who become fathers also become paternal. We took advantage of these extremely interesting paradigms in behavior between males and females and fathers and infanticide all males to discover what are the brain areas involved with this behavior. The first question we ask our what are the neurons that drive behavior . In the first set of experiments, we identified a specific set of cells in the hypothalamus that are activated during parental behavior. We then ask are these neurons required for parental behavior . We genetically ablated these neurons in rental males and parental males and parental females and surprisingly and remarkably, none of these animals neglect their infants or attack them. This experiment the success shows these are required for parental behavior. In the next experiment, we asked if the activity in these neurons was sufficient to drive rental parental behavior. We took aggressive males and artificially stimulated these nurturing neurons. Amazingly, the aggressive male stop attacking the pups and instead, they groom the infants. What this experiments as is the activity of these neurons is sufficient to drive parental care. In another experiment, we identify a set of cells in a different area of the hypothalamus that is activated when aggressive males attacked their infants. We call these this the parental neglect neurons. In another experiment, we activate these neurons in females and found these neurons, instead of caring for their infants now neglect or attack them. So overall, this series of experiments suggest the brain has two components a set of cells in the hypothalamus that drives parental behavior and another set of cells that drives parental neglect. We are very excited by these results because it opens new opportunities to understand the control of parental behavior and possibly why some animals are parental and some are neglecting or attacking these infants. Parental behavior is widely observed among animals, so these also raise the possibility that the function and regulation is widely conserved across the animal kingdom. Charlie how do you stimulate the neuron and to make the aggressive males mourner more nurturing . Guest we stimulate neurons that have been modified and have a channel that is light activated. We drive the activity of genetically defined population of neurons. Charlie fascinating. Charlie let me talk about how it has all evolved. Guest what is very nice about what catherine has told us is that parenting is conserved across animals. What is interesting is that it often varies. There are similarities between species and there are differences between closely related species. Our work is trying to understand the evolutionary basis for some of these parenting behaviors and why is it you have some parenting thats very different . As you can see this is a video of a gorilla mother and her infant. This is one of those things we want to understand what is similar about humans and our caregiving and parental behavior in other animals . In the biology of mammals, females, it means there are hormones that are important in determining lactation, driving the production of milk and the let down reflex. These hormones are very important in regulating the behavior of mothers and their infants. Two of these hormones are oxytocin and prolactin. At the end of regnant see, the pregnancy, the hypothalamus, the same part of the brain were catherine discovered the parenting hormones, produces proxy toes and primarily important physiologically in the production of milk and lactation. However, it is important in driving maternal behavior. Oxytocin has these secondary impact on the brain such that when oxytocin levels are raised, females bond with their babies. This hormone is incredibly important in driving this relationship. Another hormone produced is prolactin which is important in the production of milk. It also has consequences for maternal offspring bonding. Thats interesting because we have this biology that allows females to produce milk, but they are also incredibly important in driving the relationship between mothers and their offspring. Its also shown to drive social bonds in general with other animals, so it seems like one of the base relationships tween two individuals for mammals is the mother offspring bond and its important in determining pair bonding between the relationships of males and females and more widely social relationships. There has been some fascinating work done to understand the evolutionary behavior, especially of pair bonding between males and females. There is a nice system in full square some are polygynous and some are monogamous. The prairie vole is an example of monogamous pair bonding that are nurturing toward their young. What has been found in this system is that not only are there higher levels of oxytocin, but in the mails, theres a similar hormone produced by the hypothalamus which is important in determining pair bonding behavior. In a monogamous species, there are more present. Oxytocin in female is important and driving maternal behavior and in males, it plays a similar role in driving pair bonds. There was a fascinating series of experiments determining both how oxytocin impacts female maternal behavior and mail pair bonding and paternal behavior. Charlie is it monogamy that produces the high levels of oxytocin or is it higher level of oxytocin that produce monogamy . Guest oxytocin is primarily involved with the maternal behavior. What is quite interesting is some of the tame some of the same teams that work on how that relates to pair bonding have shown you can take species that are not monogamous and had that and make them switch to being monogamous. You can actually change the hormones and it changes their behavior. In a larger context, understanding what makes humans special, or what is it about human biology that is both similar and different to other primates. One thing thats remarkable as we have a very large brain and exceptionally long juvenile and infancy times. Because we are born so helpless and unable to take care of ourselves, parenting becomes exceptionally important. Human babies are totally defenseless and even throughout their juvenile time, they need more investment either parents than similar species closely related to us. That tells us that in humans particularly, understanding the role of parenting behavior is very important. Charlie what are the effects of children deprived of nurturing . Guest as you can see here, this infant and mother are having a wonderful conversation. This mother is in love with this baby and is what you want to see in all mothers. In instances of profound deprivation, all of that is missing. Here, we have a pair of twins interacting. But here we have institutional care. The thing to notice is the sheer number of babies and the lack of caregivers. As you look through here theres one that you can see in the back. This is a very low investment in these children, unlike the piece we saw in the beginning. This lack of social interaction plays a fundamental role in building the brain. What we started to observe is in this study, what happens to the developing brain in kids growing up in institutional care. We had a manipulation where we saw a large number of children abandoned to institutions in romania. After studying them, some were placed in high quality foster care and some are placed in an some remain in the institution. I want to show you a video of a child around the age of two. The girl who is rolling over is 22 months of age. Her iq is below 50. Shes been in the institution and notice the other little girl is rocking. There are three or four other kids rocking and that is characteristic of kids who grow up in institutions. The question becomes what happens to the brain . And the next slide, im going to show you the beginning of the journey to understanding the brain. We recorded the brains electrical activity by placing sensors on top of the head. The billions of neurons we have generated electricity we can pick up. From there, we can infer the power the brain is producing. How much electrical activity is there. We can color code that which indicates more or less power. On the right side, you see an image of ad never institutionalized brain. You are looking at this from the top down. Its portrayed here to reflect much more brain activity in red sitting over the frontal lobe. On the left panel, that is the institutionalized group. The brains of the kids in the institution are underpowered. Instead of a 100 watt lightbulb, its a 40 watt lightbulb. At that time, we became concerned. When the children were eight to 10, we performed Magnetic Resonance imaging on them. On the right is an m. R. I. Scan and we are showing here gray matter which represent the cell bodies and appendages of the neurons that sit on the cortical surface and do the computations and calculations of the brain. White matter shows up white and gray matter shows up gray. On the far right, you see the amount of gray matter in the never institutionalized these are children who grew up in families in bucharest, romania. If you look at the children on the far left, it is dramatically reduced. They show less gray matter as do the kids in foster care. What this is showing us is the brain has much less gray matter why the function of being in an institution. We show the same reduction and white matter. What is scary about this is that its we know there is a smaller brain as a function of being an institution. Guest this is so important because before chuck did these studies, people knew deprivation and a lack of parental interaction was bad for the Cognitive Development of children. We did not know the degree to which it affected the brain directly. This is the first evidence that shows dramatic changes in the brain. Charlie what to be different if there were some kind of activities with these kids much more collegiality from outside . Guest in a moment, we will talk about what happens when you put kids in families. Your question is can you improve an institution . Guest and does it have to be the parents . Can it be parental substitutes . Charlie it doesnt have to be the parents, but it has to be caregivers that care for the child. Charlie is it as simple as your brain will develop if you can feel there is some contact and someone knows who you are and there is some active caring . Guest absolutely. Social interaction is what is stimulating Brain Development and it is the lack of social interaction. Kids in an institution who got cognitive and linguistic stimulation but no caregiving got would be just as poorly off. Now the question is how much recovery is there . In this study, we placed half the kids into highquality foster care. At the beginning of this video when she is 22 months of age. Right after this, we put her in foster care and this is her in foster care eight months later. Her iq is in the mid60s. This is her interacting with her foster care other. Mother. They have this loving relationship and this is eight months of foster care. In this clip, she is four years of age and has been half her life in foster care. Look at that interaction. This is the same little girl in the beginning who is crawling backwards and rolling over and had no language and now her iq is in the 80s. This tremendous recovery can occur by placing children into a family. But it seems to be regular did by critical time which means placement before the age of two years of age leads to much better outcomes. Placement after that leads to much less desirable outcomes. On this slide, we can show that eeg. On the right is the brain of the never institutionalized child. In the next slide, we see the critical time. This is institution after age two. It looks identical to the institutionalized brain. The child is in a family, but not until they were older than two. Now the children placed before they were two years old looks just like the kids who were never placed in an institution. What we see is an Inflection Point in development. Removal from an institution and placement to a good family before two leads to better outcomes. Charlie so timing is everything and a at the ceiling on how much you can do. Guest its a window of opportunity that