Although interest in the neurobiology of parent–infant bonding is a century old,
neuroimaging of the human parental brain is recent. After summarizing current comparative …

In recent decades, human sociocultural changes have increased the numbers of fathers that
are involved in direct caregiving in Western societies. This trend has led to a resurgence of …

This article is part of a Special Issue “Parental Care”. Research on the neurobiology of
attachment, pioneered by scholars in the generation that followed the discovery of social …

Oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (AVP) regulate various social behaviors via activation of the
OT receptor (OTR) and the AVP V1a receptor (V1aR) in the brain. Social behavior often …

The lateral septum (LS) is involved in controlling anxiety, aggression, feeding, and other
motivated behaviors. Lesion studies have also implicated the LS in various forms of caring …

This article is part of a Special Issue “Parental Care”. Becoming a parent is arguably the
most profound transforming experience in life. It is also inherently very emotionally and …

The peripartum period is accompanied by dramatic changes in hormones and a host of new
behaviours in response to experience with offspring. Both maternal experience and …

Initiation and maintenance of maternal behavior is driven by a complex interaction between
the physiology of parturition and offspring stimulation, causing functional changes in …

Functional imaging studies and clinical evidence indicate that cortical areas relevant to
social cognition are closely integrated with evolutionarily conserved basal forebrain …

Prolactin is best known for its effects of stimulating mammary gland development and
lactogenesis. However, prolactin is a pleiotropic hormone that is able to affect several …