Mom's love helps kids brain grow

A mother's nurturing love for her preschooler fosters the growth of a region in the child's brain that is key to learning and responding to stress, researchers have found.

Until now, there's been no solid proof linking a supportive, attentive parent to changes in the brain anatomy of children. Many studies have shown the importance of nurturing early in life in rodents and primates.

The nurturing experiment was designed to give researchers an idea of how much support the children received at home. (iStock)
The brain's hippocampus is important for learning, memory and coping with stress.

In this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S. researchers reported that some children had a hippocampus almost 10 per cent larger than their peers whose mothers who didn't show as much care. Read more