I know it seems like a joke, but it is not. A group of scientists wanted to know if there is any kind of physical or biological factor that can predetermine how parents will act in the care of their children and, apparently, have seen that the size of the testicles could be related.
The first thing I have thought is that those with the largest testicles will be the ones that are most involved, but no, it is the opposite: parents who have smaller testicles become more involved in the care of their babies.
The study has been conducted by a group of anthropologists at Emory University, in the United States, and they have seen that there could be a relationship between the volume of the testicles and the protective brain activity of the parents.
It is well known that economic, social and cultural factors have much to do with how a father will be with his children. It is also known that lower levels of testosterone in men are related to greater parental involvement and that, on the contrary, a higher level of testosterone is related to a higher probability of divorce and more likely for men to maintain extra relationships. -marital. The researchers also wanted to know if there was any physical or biological characteristic that could also predefine the role of man in raising children and that is how they associated testicular volume with parental involvement.
To do the study, a sample of 70 biological parents was taken with a child between 1 and 2 years old who lived with both their son and the child's biological mother. They interviewed fathers and mothers separately to know their vision of parenting and what was the involvement in their child's care, asking about tasks such as changing diapers, feeding and bathing the baby, staying with children at home if they were sick or take them to the doctor.
Then they measured men's testosterone levels, performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity while they showed them photos of their children with expressions of happiness, sadness and neutrals and then photos with the same emotions of an unknown child and an unknown adult, and finally they made a structural magnetic resonance to measure the volume of each man's testicles.
The results, as we have commented, are that the size of the testicles and the amount of testosterone are inversely proportional to the level of care for children. In fact, the volume of the testicles is related to the activity of the ventral tegmental area (VTA), which is a part of the brain associated with reward and motivation.
Jennifer Mascaró, director of the study, commented the following:
The volume of the testicles correlates more with sperm count and quality than with testosterone levels ... In men with smaller testicles, this region of the brain (VTA) was activated to a greater extent when looking at pictures of their own child .
Although the researchers explained that the relationship between one thing and another is not perfect, because it could be that, and never better, it was before the chicken than the egg, that is, that the size of men's testicles would be reduced as a result of a way of life dedicated to children, since it is known that testosterone levels drop when men become parents committed to the education of children.
A co-worker has asked me, upon hearing the news, about the size of my testicles. As I am always talking about children, education and pediatrics, now everyone must think that I have two peas ... anyway. Just in case, I replied that I do not know, that I would have to compare them with those of others.
