New Boy and I don’t speak openly about The Boss’s cognitive decline, but we do exchange looks when he has to refer to the wi-fi password on the fridge magnet and forgets where he put the TV remote.

Not to mention walking into a room to do something, then forgetting whatever it was.

The thing is, it has pluses and minuses for us — if he starts forgetting he’s already fed us, we stand to get two meals in quick succession.

But if he forgets to feed us altogether, we’re in trouble.

At least he’s starting to talk about it, which is considered healthy these days.

Some scientists in Madrid have just published their research — exquisitely timed for Father’s Day — showing that becoming a father shrinks part of your brain.

The Boss is running with it, pointing out that having twins clearly doubled the impact — and, in his case at least, worsened with every additional offspring.

Dr Magdalena Martinez-Garcia and her colleagues followed 40 expectant fathers, half from Spain and half from the US, along with a control group of 17 Spanish men without a baby on the way.

Scans before and after the birth of their children showed consistent shrinkage of the fathers’ cerebral cortex, although the brain shrinkage was not evenly distributed.

The biggest shrinkages were in the back of the cortex where information from the retina is processed and interpreted, and in the parts of the sub-cortex known as the default mode network, which allow for day-dreaming, mind-wandering and thinking about one’s self.

Dr Martinez-Garcia’s group also examined the brain activity of the Spanish fathers while they looked at pictures of their own babies as well as other infants.

It showed those with the largest reductions in brain size had the strongest response to images of their own children compared to images of others.

It looks like a cunning evolutionary plan, designed to attune fathers to the wail of a hungry, wet or wind-afflicted infant at 2am — to the exclusion of other things, like watching a cricket Test in South Africa or a replay of The Shawshank Redemption.

Other researchers have labelled it “paternal neuroplasticity” and say that regions of the brain responsible for empathy and social awareness do a sort of spring cleaning, pruning away unnecessary connections to make room for new skills, such as changing smelly nappies and welcoming a face full of projectile vomit as an act of love.

It’s taken its toll on The Boss, is all I can say.

It’s arguable that his brain never recovered its former volume; The Boss says he never rebuilt that bit of the cortex that allowed him to sleep in on the weekends, or spontaneously extend a stay on the river for an extra day or three, without having to tell anybody, when the fishing was good.

He was looking a little glum, so I reminded him of the Swiss researchers’ finding earlier this year that owning a four-pawed friend is linked to slower cognitive decline by preserving specific brain functions as humans grow older, although they varied depending on the pet.

Dog owners were found to retain a sharper memory, while cat owners showed slower declines in verbal fluency; sadly, fish and bird ownership showed no significant link to cognitive decline.

It’s been up to me.

By keeping The Boss active, dragging him out every day in any weather for a walk, giving him a sense of routine and lowering his blood pressure while I let him scratch behind my ears, I’m stemming the shrinkage as much as I can.

So, if your father is forgetting his wallet when you all go out to lunch, just buy him a Father’s Day dog. Woof!

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Saturday, 14th February 2026

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