Grandmothers and grandparents quite often act as guardians of their descendants' children. New research shows that grandmothers and their grandchildren share a special bond. It turns out that it is sometimes stronger than the mother-child relationship. The results were published in the journal "Proceedings of the Royal Society B".
James Rilling, a psychiatrist and professor of anthropology, and a team of researchers have traced the brain functions of fifty women who are grandmothers with at least one biological grandson between the ages of 3 and 12.
Women were shown pictures of their grandson, unknown child, parent of a grandson, and unknown adult, and then examined their brain functions using MRI. Grandmothers were also asked to fill in a questionnaire on the basis of which their degree of commitment to the relationship and attachment to the grandson was determined.
Watching photos of my grandchildren activated areas involved in emotional empathy and movement. Grandmothers who had seen stronger activation of the brain areas involved in cognitive empathy (temporo-parietal connection and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex) when viewing photos of their grandson wanted to be more involved in caring for their grandchildren.
Compared to the results of earlier studies of fathers, grandmothers more strongly activated regions involved in emotional empathy and motivation. The findings suggest that emotional empathy may be a key part of a grandmother's response to her grandchildren.