by: Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Feb. 27, 2008 — The urge to cuddle and coo when presented with a baby turns out to be an innate response prompted, at least in part, by the structure of an infant’s face, according to new research that actually shows how this baby love process works in adult brains.

The finding could explain many behaviors, including why adults connect with babies, why most parents immediately gravitate to their kids and why many men appear to be attracted to women with baby-like features.

All elicit an attraction and parental brain response beginning in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, which is at the front of the brain just over our eyeballs, the new study, published in this week’s PLoS ONE, determined.

“The brain activity in the orbitofrontal cortex could help us pay more attention, protect and cuddle the infant,” lead author Morten Kringelbach told Discovery News.

Kringelbach, a senior research fellow in the University of Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry, and his colleagues compiled a database of infant photos pulled from digital videotapes of 27 infants who were filmed in their own homes. Ninety-five male and female adults rated the emotional expressions of the babies from “very negative” to “very positive” affects.

You can read the full story at Discovery news website.