Parenting good for one’s intelligence?
The Boston Globe published as article [Giving birth to a better brain: Do babies sharpen parents' minds?] describing a new line of research suggesting that child-rearing is good for one’s competence and, indeed, one’s brain. At least among the animals studied, those engaged in parenting exhibited expanded cognitive abilities:
The transforming experiences of pregnancy, labor, and caring for small children ”enables the brain to process information much differently than it did before,” he said.
Kinsley and other researchers have found that beginning a few weeks after giving birth, a female rat’s cognitive abilities — particularly smell and visual perception — start to expand. Rats nursing a litter of pups discover and catch prey three times as quickly as virgin rats, he said.
And we fathers may benefit as well:
Kinsley and Lambert found that father mice and marmosets performed better than non-parents at tests of foraging and remembering the location of hidden Froot Loops. And like mother rats, father rats experience growth in brain cells after fathering pups, albeit much smaller growth.
Of course, it’s important to remember that it’s a large leap from rats to humans. But these results are certainly intriguing.
Add comment November 1st, 2005