What transforms footloose, feckless men into switched-on, dedicated fathers? Science is starting to discover that, just as nature prepares women to be committed mums, it can also make dads' brains significantly sharper and more empathetic. A study being presented next month to the Society for Neuroscience by researchers at Richmond University, Virginia, shows how hormone changes in motherhood seem to make women brighter, faster at solving problems and more spatially aware. But it's not only mums' minds that get chemically enhanced.

While the biology of fatherhood remains largely uncharted, a growing body of research shows how new dads undergo a series of hormonal changes that may boost their nurturing instincts, make them kinder, more concerned and attentive to the point of obsessiveness. And, because there's usually a downside in nature, the changes may also induce phantom-pregnancy symptoms and attacks of the baby blues.

In a surprising series of tests by Canadian scientists, up to 90 per cent of dads have reported pregnancy-like symptoms such as nausea, cravings and weight gain. Anne Storey, of Memorial University, Newfoundland, analysed 31 expectant men's blood and found that those with phantom-pregnancy symptoms had significantly raised levels of the hormone prolactin, which is named for its role in promoting lactation in women. It also prompts animals to build nests. Storey reports in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour how she also found that the boisterous male hormone, testosterone, falls in new and expectant fathers by as much as 33 per cent. It also decreases in response to an infant's cries and when men comfort their own child. The reduction, she suggests, may serve to encourage fathers to relate, rather than compete, with their children.

Read the full article in The Times online

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