来源：《卫报》
原文刊登日期：2021年11月16日
本文适合2023考生
They say that grandchildren are life’s greatest joy, and now the first study to examine grandmothers’ brain function has suggested grannies may be more emotionally connected to their grandkids than to their own sons and daughters.
老人说，孙辈是生活中最大的快乐。现在，一项对祖母大脑功能的研究表明，祖母与孙辈的情感联系可能比与自己的儿女更紧密。
Since the 1960s, researchers have assumed that one reason women tend to live decades past their reproductive years is that it increases the chances of their grandchildren surviving, through the physical support they often provide – the grandmother hypothesis. More recent evidence has suggested that children’s wellbeing and educational performance is also boosted by the presence of engaged grandparents.
自20世纪60年代以来，研究人员就提出了一个假设，即女性往往能在生育年龄后活几十年的一个原因是，这增加了孙辈存活的机会，通过她们经常提供的身体支持——这被称为祖母假说。最近的证据表明，孩子们的健康和学业表现也因积极参与的祖父母而得到提升。
To better understand the biological underpinnings of this connection, Prof James Rilling, an anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and colleagues recruited 50 women with at least one biological grandchild aged between three and 12, and used functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan their brains as they looked at photos of that child, the child’s parents, and images of an unrelated child and adult.
为了更好地理解这种联系的生物学基础，乔治亚州亚特兰大埃默里大学的人类学家詹姆斯·瑞林教授和他的同事招募了50名女性，她们至少有一个3到12岁的亲生孙辈，当她们看着孙辈的照片，孙辈父母的照片，以及一个无关的孩子和成年人的照片时，使用功能性磁共振成像来扫描她们的大脑。
“What really jumps out is the activation in areas of the brain associated with emotional empathy,” Rilling said. “That suggests that grandmothers are geared toward feeling what their grandchildren are feeling when they interact with them. If their grandchild is smiling, they’re feeling the child’s joy. And if their grandchild is crying, they’re feeling the child’s pain and distress.”
“真正引人注目的是大脑中与情感同理心有关的区域的激活，”瑞林说。“这表明，当祖母与孙辈互动时，她们倾向于感受孙辈的感受。如果她们的孙辈在微笑，她们就感受到了孩子的快乐。如果她们的孙辈哭了，她们就感受到了孩子的痛苦和悲伤。”
Rilling previously performed a similar exercise with fathers as they looked at pictures of their children. The activation seen in the grandmothers’ emotion processing areas, and in those associated with reward and motivation, was stronger, on average, than the fathers’.
瑞林之前也做过类似的实验，让父亲们看自己孩子的照片。平均而言，祖母的情绪处理区域以及与奖励和动机相关的区域的激活比父亲的更强。
In contrast, when the grandmothers looked at images of their adult child, slightly different brain areas tended to be activated: those associated with cognitive empathy. This could indicate that they were trying to cognitively understand their adult child, rather than experiencing this more direct emotional connection. “Emotional empathy is when you’re able to feel what someone else is feeling, but cognitive empathy is when you understand at a cognitive level what someone else is feeling and why,” Rilling said.
相比之下，当祖母们看她们成年孩子的图像时，大脑中与之略有不同的区域被激活：那些与认知同理心有关的区域。这可能表明，她们试图从认知上理解她们的成年孩子，而不是体验这种更直接的情感联系。“情感同理心是指你能够感受别人的感受，而认知同理心是指你在认知层面上理解别人的感受及其原因，”瑞林说。
This could possibly help to explain the experience many grown-up children have of their parents often seeming more excited to see their grandchildren than them. “I think that’s plausible,” said Rilling, whose findings were published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. “Young children have likely evolved traits to be able to manipulate not just the maternal brain, but the grand-maternal brain. An adult child doesn’t have the same cute factor, so they may not the same emotional response.”
这可能有助于解释许多成年子女的经历，他们的父母看到孙辈往往比看到他们更兴奋。“我认为这是有道理的，”瑞林说，他的发现发表在《英国皇家学会学报b》上。“年幼的孩子可能已经进化出不仅能够控制母体大脑，而且能够控制祖母大脑的特征。成年孩子没有同样的可爱因素，因此她们可能没有同样的情绪反应。”
The results support the idea that there may be a global caregiving system in the brain that is activated in mothers, fathers and grandmothers. Rilling now hopes to study grandfathers and other childcare providers to see how they compare.
研究结果支持了这样一种观点，即母亲、父亲和祖母的大脑中可能存在一个被激活的整体护理系统。瑞林现在希望研究祖父和其他托儿服务提供者，看看他们之间的比较。