Mom's love and brain power: loving, nurturing, and supportive moms will increase children`s brain size and helping kids to better learning, memory and stress response

Using MRI brain scans of 92 children after they reached 7 to 10 years old, a team of researchers led by Dr. Joan Luby at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, found that children with loving and nurturing mothers had a larger hippocampus.  The brain size of the happy kids was about 10% larger than kids who had moms that were not care much.  Researchers believe that the hippocampus area of the brain is critical for learning, memory and stress response. The study is being published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.