Mother's voice lights up children's brain
A study conducted in the United States revealed that various regions of a child's brain show different reactions when exposed to their mothers' voices.The research published in Science Daily showcased how, using MRI technology, recordings of mothers' voices stimulate children's primary auditory cortex; regions of the brain that handle emotions, such as the amygdala; brain regions that detect and assign value to rewarding stimuli, such as the mesolimbic reward pathway and medial prefrontal cortex; regions that process information about the self, including the default mode network; and areas involved in perceiving and processing the sight of faces.It was also revealed that communication between the areas of the brain affected by mothers' voices is better in children who are more social. The scientists claimed that the study provides hope for children with autism and said the effects of mothers' voices will be studied on adolescents and adults in future studies. The study examined 24 healthy children between ages 7 and 12 whose IQs are at least 80.Professor Vinod Menon said their primary aim was to examine the reaction of children to their mothers' voices; however, they found that mothers' voices also activate other areas of children's brains. Daniel Abrams, one of the researchers, stressed that the development of our social, linguistic and emotional processes are linked to a mother's voice, and he added that the speed of interaction between the areas affected by mothers' voices is remarkable.