A new study finds that gay men experience the same cognitive brain changes while raising adopted children as heterosexual parents do when raising biological children. 

According to Reuters, the report, which was released Monday, may change some of the public's views on gay couples raising children.

Although same-sex marriage is becoming increasingly accepted on a national scale, many U.S. adoption agencies still refuse to work with gay couples. Some states even preclude gay men from adopting children. 

The study, which was conducted in Israel and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, builds on a previous study that proves that the brains of new mothers become hyper-reactive to a child's cries and emotions. However, it is not yet clear if the change is due to hormonal changes that go along with pregnancy, or if the changes simply come with the experience of being a mother.

Ruth Feldman of Bar-Ilan University led the original study, in which she videotaped 89 new mothers and fathers reacting to their infants while at home. Then she measured the parents' brain activity compared to their brain activity when they watch videos that do not feature their children. 

The 20 mothers in the study had heightened brain activity in the brain's emotion-processing regions while watching their babies. 

"These are regions that respond unconsciously to signs of an infants' needs, and that derive deep emotional reward from seeing the baby," Feldman said.

The 21 fathers also had increased activation of cognitive circuits while watching their infants. The cognitive circuits in the brain interprets babies' cries and non-verbal cues. 

The recent study found that 48 gay fathers have similar brain changes to new mothers and heterosexual fathers. While watching their children, their emotional circuits became as active as those of mothers, and their interpretive circuits matched those of heterosexual fathers. 

Feldman said she is confident that the brain activity results from parenting. 

The study also showed that homosexual fathers have more communication lines between emotional and cognitive structures than heterosexual fathers. More connectivity was shown when the man spent more time as the child's primary caregiver. 

"Fathers' brains are very plastic," Feldman said. "When there are two fathers, their brains must recruit both networks, the emotional and cognitive, for optimal parenting."