In studying the brain activity of grandmothers👵, researchers at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, found grandmothers experience more emotional empathy with their grandchildren than with their adult kids.
This could maybe explain why they instantly get super happy when they see their Nana 😍
Researchers at Emory University sought to use functional magnetic 🧲 resonance imaging to examine what happened in a grandmother’s 👵🏼 brain when they looked at photos 📸 of a grandchild👧🏼, their adult child👩🏼💼, an unrelated child 👦🏻, and an unrelated adult 👨🏽 in a study recently published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
5️⃣0️⃣ grandmothers with at least one biological grandchild between the ages of 3️⃣ and 1️⃣2️⃣ years old were asked to participate in this study. They found that different areas of the brain 🧠 activate when grandmothers would look at their grandchild compared to their own adult children.
What’s even more fascinating is the activation in areas of the brain 🧠 associated with emotional empathy. This explains that grandmothers are geared towards feeling what their grandchildren are feeling when they communicate with them. For example if their grandchild is crying 💧, they’re feeling distress and pain in the child, when their grandchild is smiling 😀, they’re feeling the child’s joy.
Hands Down to all our amazing Grandmothers! ❤️
Source: Romper, By Morgan Brinlee
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