Wow? In the brain!!! The BRAIN!!!!

Found this on Language Log today (somehow managed not to read the original). Mark Liberman on "my own candidate for Most Pernicious Science Narrative of the Decade":

There was a great example of this narrative in the New York Times a few days ago: Tara Parker-Pope, "Maternal Instinct Is Wired Into the Brain", 3/7/2008:

A mother's impulse to love and protect her child appears to be hard-wired into her brain, a new imaging study shows.

Tokyo researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (M.R.I.) to study the brain patterns of 13 mothers, each of whom had an infant about 16 months old.

First, the scientists videotaped the babies smiling at their mothers during playtime. Then the women left the room, and the infants were videotaped crying and reaching for their mothers to come back. All of the babies were dressed in the same blue shirt for the video shoot.

M.R.I. scans were taken as each mother watched videos of the babies, including her own, with the sound off. When a woman saw images of her own child smiling or upset, her brain patterns were markedly different than when she watched the other children. There was a particularly pronounced change in brain activity when a mother was shown images of her child in distress.

So let's recap this.

1. Mothers react differently to videos of happy 16-month-olds and crying 16-month-olds.
2. Mother react more strongly to videos of their own 16-month-olds in distress than to videos of other infants in distress.

And guess where in their bodies this difference can be found? In their brains! (Among other places, anyhow.)

Oh, gosh. Astounding.

I find myself wondering if anyone's done this sort of study on fathers.

Will the research showing that fathers can recognize their kids and don't like seeing them unhappy be trumpeted as "paternal instinct hard-wired into brain"?

How about siblings? Lovers? Children watching adults? Pet owners?

I mean, for crying out loud ... who thinks this won't show up in the brain?