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. 2022 Sep 27;119(39):e2212224119.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2212224119. Epub 2022 Sep 19.

Triggers for mother love

Margaret S Livingstone  1
Affiliations

Triggers for mother love

Margaret S Livingstone. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Previous studies showed that baby monkeys separated from their mothers develop strong and lasting attachments to inanimate surrogate mothers, but only if the surrogate has a soft texture; soft texture is more important for the infant's attachment than is the provision of milk. Here I report that postpartum female monkeys also form strong and persistent attachments to inanimate surrogate infants, that the template for triggering maternal attachment is also tactile, and that even a brief period of attachment formation can dominate visual and auditory cues indicating a more appropriate target.

Keywords: attachment; bonding; maternal bonding.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no competing interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Typical maternal behavior of a rhesus macaque. Female is holding (Left), nursing (Center), and protecting her infant from the perceived threat of the author coming near her enclosure (Right). Most monkeys in our colony respond to familiar humans by indicating a desire for a scratch or expectation of a treat; mothers with infants are extra-defensive (10, 18) and will initially show aggression for a few seconds then calm down and accept treats. The infant in these photos is monkey B2, whose behavior as an adult is described below.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Female monkey Ve showing maternal behavior toward a stuffed toy mouse 2 and 3 d postpartum. She continuously holds the toy (Left and Center) and protects it from the perceived threat of the author approaching her home enclosure.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Monkey Sv with adopted soft toys after her first parturition (Top) and her second (Bottom). The top row shows her still carrying around a toy 3 wk postparturition. The leftmost panel shows a red kong that was not chosen, and the rightmost panel shows her carrying the toy on her hips, a typical maternal behavior, but, as with live infants, the mother usually quickly grabs the infant back to her chest whenever anyone approaches, so it was difficult to get a picture of this. The bottom row shows the same monkey 3 wk after her second parturition; she chose this reddish toy over a brown one on the morning after birth.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Monkey B2 still carrying her toy 2 mo after parturition. She is the same monkey as the infant in Fig. 1. On the evening of the day of parturition she retained this toy in preference to her own live infant.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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