English magazine Nature Neuroscience published a research that may explain the bond between the mother and her baby: during the pregnancy, the mother’s brain changes and develops the “maternal instinct”, probably in order to protect and relate better with her newborn

The study

Pregnancy implies hormonal and biological changes, but their effect on the brain are still uncertain. For the first time, researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Hospital del Mar Institute conducted a study that confronts the female brain’s structure before and after a pregnancy. 

The brain of a pregnant woman shows a reduction of the grey matter in the regions connected to the social relations. Some of these regions activate when the woman looks at a sonogram of her baby, supposing that her brain is specializing to deal with the challenges of motherhood.

The full article is available on Nature Neuroscience.