Science and technology | Dad brain

Becoming a father shrinks your cerebrum 

That may help form parental attachments

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It is hardly surprising that pregnancy and childbirth, nine months of enormous changes to a woman’s body, also change her brain. And they do, by causing certain parts of it to shrink. Fathers, it might be thought, would be unaffected. But no. There is evidence that their brains shrink, too. A paper just published in Cerebral Cortex by Magdalena Martínez-García of the Gregorio Marañón Health Research Institute in Madrid, and her colleagues, divulges the details.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline "Dad brain"

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