Fatherless Childhood May Injure Brain Development

Recent animal research backs previous sociological research by indicating that children raised by single mothers may experience reduced brain development, leading to an increase in aggressive behavior. The findings come from research on degus, which are small rodents related to guinea pigs. Degu parents usually raise their pups together. When deprived of their father, however, degu pups exhibited developmental changes in the amygdala, the part of the brain related to emotional responses and to fear, and in the orbitofrontal cortex, or OFC, the brain's decision-making center. According to one of the researchers, the balance between these two parts of the brain is critical to normal emotional and cognitive functioning: if the OFC isn't active, the amygdala "goes crazy, like a horse without a rider." Wall Street Journal, LifeSiteNews