CAREER: Brain, Biology, and Behavior Over the Transition to Fatherhood

职业：向父亲过渡期间的大脑、生物学和行为

• 批准号: 1552452
• 负责人: Darby Saxbe
• 金额: $ 77万
• 依托单位: University of Southern California
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-08-15 至 2022-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1552452&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Brain; Biology; Behavior; Over

Father involvement in families benefits children across the lifespan. For example, children with involved fathers show improvements in school readiness, physical health, peer relationships, resilience to psychopathology, and long-term economic and occupational outcomes. However, surprisingly little is known about the factors that predict whether and how fathers successfully transition to parenthood. Like mothers, fathers are affected both psychologically and physiologically by the arrival of a new child. For example, expectant and new fathers experience hormonal changes, and the structure and activity in their brains change as well. This project charts changes in individual fathers-to-be over time prior to and then after their first child is born, and explores which aspects of hormonal and brain changes are most likely to lead to positive parenting influences that optimize their babies' development. The HATCH (Hormones Across the Transition to Parenthood) study seeks to understand how fathers' brains and bodies prepare to parent. Expectant opposite-sex couples (all first-time parents) will complete five assessments: in-person prenatal (mid-to-late pregnancy); perinatal (within 1-2 days of birth), and postpartum (six months after birth) visits; and additional follow-up questionnaires at 3 months and one year after birth. Cortisol, testosterone, oxytocin, and prolactin will be sampled from the father and mother at each visit. These allow tracking of individual patterns of hormonal change over time, and hormonal synchrony within couples. The investigator will also collect neural data through a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning protocol that includes a high-resolution structural scan and resting state scan to assess changes in brain structure and connectivity, and several functional tasks that assess social cognition. Outcomes related to parenting, couple relationship quality, and infant health and development will be measured through videotaped, in-lab interactions as well as through self-report questionnaires. This project will be the largest study of hormones in new parents to date, and the first study to collect longitudinal structural and functional MRI data from fathers before and after their child's birth. The opportunity to educate parents regarding parenting and its hormonal and neural implications also makes valuable contributions.

父亲参与家庭对孩子的一生都有好处。例如，有父亲参与的孩子在入学准备、身体健康、同伴关系、心理病理恢复能力以及长期经济和职业成果方面表现出改善。然而，令人惊讶的是，人们对预测父亲是否以及如何成功过渡为人父母的因素知之甚少。与母亲一样，父亲也会因新生儿的到来而受到心理和生理上的影响。例如，准爸爸和新爸爸会经历荷尔蒙的变化，他们大脑的结构和活动也会发生变化。该项目绘制了准父亲在第一个孩子出生之前和之后随时间的变化，并探讨了荷尔蒙和大脑变化的哪些方面最有可能带来积极的养育影响，从而优化婴儿的发育。 HATCH（为人父母过渡过程中的激素）研究旨在了解父亲的大脑和身体如何为养育孩子做好准备。准异性伴侣（均为初为父母）将完成五项评估： 现场产前评估（怀孕中后期）；围产期（出生后 1-2 天内）和产后（出生后六个月）访视；以及出生后 3 个月和一年的额外随访问卷。每次就诊时，都会从父亲和母亲身上采集皮质醇、睾酮、催产素和催乳素样本。这些可以跟踪荷尔蒙随时间变化的个体模式，以及夫妻内荷尔蒙的同步性。研究人员还将通过磁共振成像（MRI）扫描协议收集神经数据，其中包括高分辨率结构扫描和静息状态扫描，以评估大脑结构和连接性的变化，以及评估社会认知的多项功能任务。与育儿、夫妻关系质量以及婴儿健康和发育相关的结果将通过录像、实验室内互动以及自我报告问卷来衡量。该项目将是迄今为止规模最大的新父母激素研究，也是第一项收集孩子出生前后父亲的纵向结构和功能 MRI 数据的研究。 对父母进行关于育儿及其荷尔蒙和神经影响的教育的机会也做出了宝贵的贡献。