You know how newborn babies can smell so good?
你知道新生婴儿嗅觉何以如此灵敏?
Well that reaction might be more nature than nurture—at least for women.
嗯,这种反应可能是先天因素大于后天哺育,至少是对于女性而言。
Researchers had 30 women sniff various mystery scents while their brains were scanned.
研究人员在让30名女性闻各种各样的神秘气味时对她们的大脑进行扫描。
Have the women had recently given birth.
有的女性刚刚生育。
The other half never had.
另一半则没有。
When the subjects sniffed clothes that, unknown to them, had been worn by newborns, their brains all showed specific activity.
当受试者嗅自己并不认识的新生儿一直穿的衣服时,她们的大脑全部显示特定的活动。
What got turned on were the same dopamine pathways that are activated by doing cocaine, by eating when hungry or by engaging in other reward-inducing behavior, like playing a slot machine.
通过吸入可卡因,饿了就吃或从事其他比如玩老虎机等奖励诱导式行为,结果显示相同多巴胺通路被激活。
And while all the women's brains lit up, the brains of those who had recently given birth showed significantly more activity than did the others'.
虽然所有的女性都有所反应,然而刚刚生育完女性的大脑表现比其他人的明显更为活跃。
So the reaction to a newborn's scent may be a hard-wired bonding mechanism between mothers and infants—a biochemical reward for mom in the midst of all her hard work.
所以新生儿对于气味的反应可能是母亲和婴儿之间与生俱来的粘结机理,是辛勤付出母亲生物上的回馈。