When a baby breast-feeds, it triggers a flood of the hormone oxytocin that releases milk from the mammary gland and a feeling of love and trust in the mother that ensures the baby's needs are met.
This reflex has long puzzled researchers because it requires large surges of oxytocin to pull off all of this. Using a special computer model, researchers from China, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom said on Thursday they now understand how it works.
Their study, reported in the journal PLoS Computational Biology, suggests that breast feeding not only taps the normal brain cells involved in secreting oxytocin.
It also recruits dendrites -- whose normal job is to create communication channels between brain cells -- into secreting the hormone.
Dr. Fuhrman is a huge advocate of breast-feeding. Just check outDiseaseProof’s healthy parenting categoryfor more.