STUDY: Brains Of Gay Dads Change After Adopting Children Via Surrogacy

Reuters reports:

Having a baby alters new mothers' brain activity, researchers have found, and a new study adds the first evidence of such changes in the brains of gay men raising children they adopted through surrogacy. The men's pattern of brain activity resembles that of both new mothers and new fathers in the study. The research, reported on Monday, could feed into the debate over whether gay men should be allowed to adopt children. Many U.S. adoption agencies will not work with same-sex couples, and some states prohibit them from adopting. The 48 gay fathers raising children with their husbands seemed to be both mom and dad, brain-wise. Their emotional circuits were as active as those of mothers and the interpretive circuits showed the same extra activity as that of heterosexual fathers'.

One researcher concludes: "Fathers' brains are very plastic. When there are two fathers, their brains must recruit both networks, the emotional and cognitive, for optimal parenting."