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Doting eyes and chubby cheeks of a baby can send many into a heartwarming swoon. Now scientists claim that your affection for an infant actually stems from your brain, not heart. The findings, published in journal NeuroImage, suggest that such brain-activity patterns may represent some deep biological impulse driving adults’ interactions with kids, the researchers said. The study also builds on past research suggesting an evolutionary link between the cuteness factor of babies and care giving by adults, they said. "These adults have no children of their own. Yet images of a baby’s face triggered what we think might be a deeply embedded response to reach out and care for that child," study author Marc Bornstein, of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in the US, was quoted as saying by LiveScience. For their study, an international team led by Bornstein showed a group of men and women a series of photos while recording their brain activity with a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. When viewing human infants, participants showed brain activity in regions that would typically "light up" just before picking up a child or talking to an infant — a pattern that didn't show up when participants looked at photos of animals, even baby animals, the researchers noted. — PTI
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