Motherhood changes the priority of the brain: when we have a child, the most important thing becomes him 2026

How many times have we said the phrase "my children always come first"? There is no doubt that as parents, our children are our number one priority, but what explains that reaction? Is it a feeling or a biological response?

A team of experts has stated that motherhood focuses the brain's decision-making and, in this way, gives priority to the care of offspring.

Amazon Essentials by Sofia Grainge - Summer 2026 Promotion

We will always choose our children

When we have to make a decision, for example, going to the beach or going to town, our brain receives a lot of information about each of the possibilities. In the case of the beach (and in the current context of the coronavirus situation), you would receive notices about the restrictions and prudence involved in going on vacation; but also about how special and refreshing the beach is in summer. Information would come from the town regarding tranquility, rest and of course, reunions with family members. In this case, our brain would opt for those arguments that it considers to have the most weight.

The person in charge of filtering this information and keeping the winning argument is a part of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex of our brain. There are many different types of stimuli that will be positioned in favor of one decision or another.

But, of course, there are stimuli that are stronger than others and, as you can imagine, they are not the same for everyone: some people are more burdened by some and others by others, and this is what means that not all of us make the same decision.

Now imagine that instead of the beach and the town, we talked to you about a mother who has to choose between her son or another strong stimulus. Do you think the answer is clear?

A group of experts wanted to analyze why our brain changes when we have a child.

The study, led by Mariana Pereira, PhD in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, and Joan I. Morrell, at the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at the State University of New Jersey, has been published in 'eNeuro', the journal of the North American Neuroscience Society and, although it has been carried out in rodents, the interesting thing is that it can be extrapolated to behaviors. humans.

To carry out the analysis, they have faced two very powerful stimuli: on the one hand, motherhood (with all that it entails) and on the other, drugs in drug-addicted mothers. Because precisely, in addiction therapies, the most effective thing for women who have had children is to emphasize the relationship between mother and baby. Knowing this, the researchers hypothesized that it must be a region of the brain that tells the mother to prioritize her child over narcotics.

The research proved the rats' preference for their offspring over one of the most addictive drugs, cocaine. The discoveries reveal that when motherhood enters the scene, the brain prioritizes the child and becomes the mother's most influential and determining stimulus when making any decision, even in cases of addiction. If this summer the mother has to choose between the beach or the town, there is no doubt that she will make the most beneficial decision for her baby.

The same area of the brain makes us resist temptation

This last part is notable if we take into account that other studies (such as one carried out by a team of Canadian researchers) also demonstrate that it is this area of the brain that gives us the ability to resist the temptation to do something that we do not really want, for example, eating a very sugary dessert.

Both advances in this part of the cerebral cortex, a field little explored by science, may allow us in the future to increase the ability to inhibit the reaction to signals that induce us to unwanted behaviors (such as drugs or excess sugar) and enhance the most beneficial ones (including motherhood).

Why will we always choose the baby's well-being?

As we say, another of the points that the authors of the study wanted to find out is, precisely, the reason or the physical part of the brain that would always opt for the well-being of our children. And they came to the conclusion that a physical part is responsible for this, of course. Specifically, it is the infralimbic cortex.

To reach this conclusion, they inactivated this part of the brain with anesthesia in the rodents.

They also demonstrated that when the infralimbic cortex is not activated, the mother's maternal behaviors towards her children decrease, that is, she worries less about their attention and care. Therefore, the researchers found that during motherhood, what this area does is somehow obstruct other competing desires so that they give preference to desires that have to do with children.