MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Babies can begin to learn their mother's scent while still in utero. New research in the journal Science Advances examines how infants may also be taking to new dad smell.
YAARA ENDEVELT-SHAPIRA: In our current study, we just isolated the body odor component and found that infants are sensitive to the father's body odor.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Yaara Endevelt-Shapira is a research scientist with the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington. She studies olfaction - how we process smell.
ENDEVELT-SHAPIRA: I like to think of body odors as nonverbal language that is used constantly to convey information between us.
KELLY: Endevelt-Shapira previously researched body scent connections between a mother and infant. She wanted to explore if that connection occurs with babies and their dads.
ENDEVELT-SHAPIRA: In recent years, fathers are becoming increasingly involved in childcare, but we still know much less about their contribution to early development.
KELLY: So her team devised some tests.
ENDEVELT-SHAPIRA: Each infant took part in three short face-to-face interactions, one with their own father and two with the unfamiliar men.
KELLY: The unfamiliar men wore either the father's preworn shirt or a new, clean, unscented shirt.
ENDEVELT-SHAPIRA: The order of all these interactions was randomized. And by comparing the different conditions, we could examine how father's body odor influenced internal brain synchrony during social interaction.
CHANG: Both the babies and the men wore devices on their heads to measure brain activity. Endevelt-Shapira says they look like shower caps filled with wires and electrodes. She found that brain activity was more in sync when the father was present but also when the father's body odor was present on a stranger.
ENDEVELT-SHAPIRA: These findings suggest infants process their father's scent and that paternal body odor can serve as a sensory cue that supports social interaction even when the father is not physically present.
KELLY: Now, Dad's B.O. is one of many sensory cues that babies experience, but the study suggests it's a good place to start for future research into how fathers can affect their infants' development.
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