Newborn babies have a remarkable amount of power. Though there are few things they can do for themselves, they can manipulate the world around them by summoning help with a simple wail. Caregivers, especially parents, are particularly sensitive to infants’ cries, which we’d expect because caregivers have an interest in looking after their babies’ needs – they want them to survive.

But is comforting a crying baby more than a conscious, rational response? A new study published in PNAS suggests we are actually hardwired to react in this way. It offers evidence that a baby’s cry provokes specific activity in the brain and leads to similar behaviour in mothers around the world. Yet I would argue this is only evidence of a shared cultural response that could be learned rather than biologically programmed into the brain.

The international group of researchers observed the caregiving reactions of nearly 700 mothers of firstborn, five-month-old babies from 11 countries across five continents. When the infants started crying, the mothers generally didn’t increase their levels of affection (for example kissing) or nurturing (for example feeding). But they almost all responded by picking up, holding, and talking to their baby, suggesting that this behaviour is likely to be universal (as we’d probably expect).

To find out whether these culturally shared behaviours were underpinned by universal neurological activity, the researchers also measured the brain patterns of American first-time mothers of three-month-old babies, and Shanghai Chinese mothers of seven-month-olds. Hearing recordings of babies crying activated brain areas associated with the intention to move and grasp, to speak, and to process sounds. It also activated two brain areas associated with maternal caregiving behaviour.

The researchers imply that since brain activation is similar across cultures, the behaviour is “automatic and deeply engrained in caregivers’ nervous systems”, suggesting it is pre-programmed, hardwired, or biologically predetermined. But it’s not clear why these similar behaviours and brain patterns occur. There are plenty of activities practised in a similar way throughout the world, from driving a car to playing football, that we do not think of as being pre-programmed.

For example, there is evidence that as car drivers focus on maintaining a safe distance from the vehicle in front of them, parts of their brain associated with visual feedback, movement selection, and hand-eye co-ordination are activated. Poor performance, meanwhile, is associated with the activity of brain regions involved in error detection.

If we compared American and Chinese drivers, we would probably find similar brain patterns across the two cultures. But this wouldn’t tell us anything about how the ability to drive a car emerges in humans. We certainly wouldn’t assume car driving was a hardwired ability.