How becoming a dad changes men’s brains

Father’s Day is an opportunity to recognize the efforts of dads around the world. But becoming a father is more than just a lifestyle change: it also changes the brain.

Scientific American spoke with Devika Bhushan, a public health physician and adjunct faculty member at Stanford University School of Medicine who studies gender norms, about how fatherhood affects men’s brains and the mental health issues fathers face. Bhushan also served as California’s acting surgeon general in 2022.

The following article is based on our conversation with Bhushan.

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“Dad Brain” Is Real

Most research on parental brain changes focuses on those that occur during pregnancy and early motherhood. Much less attention has been paid to the neurological and mental changes that occur during fatherhood, Bhushan says.

A 2014 study compared the brains of heterosexual primary caregiver mothers, heterosexual secondary caregiver fathers, and primary caregiver gay fathers. All three groups showed brain changes in a “parental care network” including a part of the cerebral cortex called the mentalizing network, which plays a role in visual processing and empathy, and a subcortical emotional processing network, which involves vigilance and reward processing. Mothers showed greater activation of the emotional network, while heterosexual fathers, secondary caregivers, had more activation of the mentalizing network. Gay fathers, the primary caregivers, showed changes in the emotional network that resembled those seen in heterosexual mothers, but they also showed some similarities to the brain changes seen in heterosexual fathers.

A newer one study in 2023 men in Spain and California were shown to experience a reduction in their gray matter after becoming fathers, just as studies have shown in first-time mothers. This shrinkage likely does not represent a decline in brain function, but rather a “pruning” of connections that could make the brain more efficient in meeting the demands of caregiving.

Taken together, these studies suggest that at least some of the brain changes seen in new parents result from the caregiving itself, not biological changes associated with pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding, notes Bhushan.

Given that people of all genders experience brain changes when they become parents, it is perhaps not surprising that just as mothers are vulnerable to postpartum depression and anxiety, fathers too can experience similar mental health issues.

Fathers can also suffer from postnatal depression

As much as one in 10 men will suffer from paternal postnatal depression or anxiety. Symptoms are often different in fathers: sudden anger or outbursts, irritability and substance abuse, for example. Such postnatal depression can affect not only the father’s well-being, but also the mother’s, as well as the development of their child, says Bhushan.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends screening mothers for postpartum depression at every doctor’s visit for their infants for the first six months. Mothers are usually screened using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scalebut this is not validated for use in non-breastfeeding parents. Men also tend to have fewer social networks than women, and therefore may receive less support from friends or family to help them cope with their mental health problems.

Postnatal depression and anxiety tend to peak later in fathers than in mothers, closer to three to six months after the birth of a child. This may be because most fathers in the United States return to work within two weeks of the birth of a child, while mothers tend to stay home longer. As a result, mothers typically bear most of the caregiving burden in the early weeks and months, while fathers may take on more responsibilities later, as many mothers return to work.

In the United States, fathers have taken on an increasing share of childcare responsibilities in recent years — and with that, an increasing share of the stress and burdens. Bhushan says maternal support systems should be restructured to become parenting systems that cater to both mothers and fathers.