Pregnancy changes nearly everything about an expectant mother’s life. That includes her brain. Pregnancy selectively shrinks gray matter to make a mom’s brain more responsive to her baby, and those changes last for years, scientists report online December 19 in Nature Neuroscience.

“This study, coupled with others, suggests that a woman’s reproductive history can have long-lasting, possibly permanent changes to her brain health,” says neuroscientist Liisa Galea of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who was not involved in the study.

Researchers performed detailed anatomy scans of the brains of 25 women who wanted to get pregnant with their first child. More scans were performed about two months after the women gave birth. Pregnancy left signatures so strong that researchers could predict whether women had been pregnant based on the changes in their brains.



The women who had carried a child and given birth had less gray matter in certain regions of their brains compared with 20 women who had not been pregnant, 19 first-time fathers and 17 childless men. These changes were still evident two years after pregnancy.

A shrinking brain sounds bad, but “reductions in gray matter are not necessarily a bad thing,” says study coauthor Elseline Hoekzema, a neuroscientist at Leiden University in the Netherlands. A similar reduction happens during adolescence, a refinement that is “essential for a normal cognitive and emotional development,” says Hoekzema, who, along with colleagues, did most of the work at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Following those important teenage years, pregnancy could be thought of almost as a second stage of brain maturing, she says.

Sign Up For the Latest from Science News Headlines and summaries of the latest Science News articles, delivered Tuesdays and Thursdays E-mail* Go

Further experiments suggested that pregnancy sculpts the brains of mothers in a very specific way, making women more responsive to their helpless infants. The regions that shrunk the most — parts of the frontal and temporal cortices as well as the midline — are thought to be involved in taking other people’s mental perspectives. Such selective shrinkage may indicate that these regions become more specialized as a result of pregnancy, an efficiency that may help a new mother better care for a baby.

Brain regions that changed the most also showed large responses to pictures of the women’s infants. What’s more, women whose brains changed the most scored higher on a questionnaire about their attachment to their baby.

First-time fathers showed no such brain changes, a result that suggests the effects on mothers’ brains are not caused by the seismic social upheaval of becoming a parent. “It’s not just having a baby to look after that makes the changes in the brain,” says neuroendocrinologist John Russell of the University of Edinburgh, who didn’t participate in the research.

Instead, the brain changes may be caused by pregnancy hormones such as estrogen and progesterone. “Pregnancy is a time of exposure to massive amounts of hormones that get into the brain,” Russell says. But he points out that because the study didn’t actually study brains during pregnancy, just before and after, “we don’t actually know when this change is coming on.” The extreme hormonal drop that comes during birth may also reshape the brain.</s>We acknowledge the participants for their contribution to this study. We thank A. Bulbena for supporting the project, and M. López, G. Pons, R. Martínez, L. González, E. Castaño, N. Mallorquí-Bagué, J. Fauquet and C. Pretus for helping with the data collection and scoring of the cognitive tests. In addition, we thank C. Phillips and J.D. Gispert for advice on the multivariate analyses, E. Marinetto and C. Falcón for advice on the FreeSurfer analyses, and J. van Hemmen and J. Bakker for discussions of the project and results. E.H. was supported by a Formación de Profesorado Universitario (FPU) grant by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spanish government, and is now supported by an Innovational Research Incentives Scheme grant (Veni, 451-14-036) of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), E.B.-M. by a grant from the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico, S.C. by the Consejería de Educación, Juventud y Deporte of Comunidad de Madrid and the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under REA grant agreement 291820, and M.P. by an FI grant of the Agencia de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris de Recerca, Generalitat de Catalunya.</s>Pregnancy causes “long-lasting” physical changes to a woman’s brain, with significant, but seemingly beneficial, grey matter loss in parts of the crucial organ, a study said.

Some alterations lasted at least two years, they reported, but did not appear to erode memory or other mental processes.

The changes “concern brain areas associated with functions necessary to manage the challenges of motherhood,” study co-author Erika Barba-Muller of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) said in a statement.

The radical hormone surges and physical changes of pregnancy have long been known and studied, but its effects on the brain have been little understood.

The new study, published in Nature Neuroscience, claims to provide the first evidence “that pregnancy confers long-lasting changes in a woman’s brain.”

It compared pre- and post-pregnancy brain scans of 25 first-time mothers. They researchers also looked at the brains of first-time fathers, as well as men and women with no children.

It found “pronounced and long-lasting GM (grey matter) volume reductions in a woman’s brain” in pregnancy, in regions involved in social processes.

In later tests, these same regions lit up most on scans measuring the women’s responses to their babies.

The brain changes were likely an adaptation for motherhood — boosting the ability to recognise the needs and emotional state of a baby and decode potential threats to its health and safety, said the researchers.

Grey matter is found in the brain’s wrinkly outer layer called the cerebral cortex, which houses the processes of learning and memory, motor function, social skills, language and problem solving.

The good news: the researchers “did not observe any changes in memory or other cognitive functions during the pregnancies and therefore believe that the loss of grey matter does not imply any cognitive defects,” said a UAB statement.

The study tested the women up to two years after pregnancy, so it is not clear how long the changes last.

The study pointed to a process called “synaptic pruning” which happens to humans in adolescence to remove rarely-used synapses — connections between brain cells.

This is done to make way, after childhood, for more efficient and specialised synapses and boost the network’s overall efficiency.

A similar process may be at play in pregnancy, the researchers speculated.

The post Pregnancy changes a woman’s brain: study appeared first on The Independent Uganda:.

This post was syndicated from The Independent Uganda:. Click here to read the full text on the original website.

Also, Like us on facebook</s>An article from KTLA reports pregnancy alters the size and structure of brain regions involved in understanding the thoughts, feelings, beliefs and intentions of others.

According to a study published in Nature Neuroscience, many changes in the brain can last approximately two years after giving birth. Elseline Hoekzema, the co-lead author of the study and a senior brain scientist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, stated that

Hoekzema followed the participants in her study for two years only.

Hoekzema and Erika Barba-Müller, co-lead author and a psychologist, began the study while working together at Autonomous University of Barcelona. They had 25 women who became mothers for the first time and 19 of their male partners undergo MRI brain scans. After completing their pregnancies, these same participants were re-scanned. To compare, 20 women who had never given birth and 17 of their male partners were also scanned at the same time intervals.

The results of the MRI scans revealed that the new mothers showed a loss of gray matter in several brain areas that are associated with social cognition, a form of emotional intelligence. The researchers clarified that while the changes were clear, how to interpret them is not.

“Loss of volume does not necessarily translate to loss of function,” stated Hoekzema, “Sometimes less is more.” She explained further that the loss of gray matter could “represent a fine-tuning of synapses into more efficient neural networks.”

Reduction in gray matter occurred in various regions of the brains of pregnant women, including the prefrontal and temporal cortex. Dr. Kim Yonkers, a professor in psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology at Yale School of Medicine who was not involved in the new study, suggested that changes in these areas may help women forget the pain or difficulty of pregnancy.

“At this point the results are associative,” said Yonkers. It remains unknown whether changes last beyond two years, she added, and that “we don’t know what happens with multiple pregnancies.”</s>Pregnancy affects not only a woman's body: It changes parts of her brain too, a new study says.

When researchers compared brain scans of women before and after pregnancy, they spotted some differences in 11 locations. They also found hints that the alterations help women prepare for motherhood. For example, they might help a mother understand the needs of her infant, Elseline Hoekzema, a study author, explained via email.

Hoekzema is a neuroscientist at Leiden University in the Netherlands who began working on the study while at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain. She and colleagues present the results in a paper released Monday by the journal Nature Neuroscience.

It includes data on 25 Spanish women scanned before and after their first pregnancies, along with 20 women who didn't get pregnant during the study. The brain changes in the pregnancy group emerged from comparisons of those two groups.

The results were consistent: A computer program could tell which women had gotten pregnant just by looking at results of the MRI scans.

And the changes, first documented an average of 10 weeks after giving birth, were mostly still present two years after childbirth. That's based on follow-up with 11 study participants.

Further work showed they're a motherhood thing: No brain changes were seen in first-time fathers.

The women showed no declines on tests of memory.

Based on prior research findings, the researchers think the brain changes happened during pregnancy rather than after childbirth.

What's going on? Hoekzema and colleagues think the differences result from sex hormones that flood the brain of a pregnant woman. In the 11 places, the MRI data indicate reductions in volume of the brain's gray matter, but it's not clear what that means. For example, it could reflect loss of brain cells or a pruning of the places where brain cells communicate, called synapses.

Losing some synapses is not necessarily a bad thing. It happens during a hormonal surge in adolescence, producing more specialized and efficient brain circuits. The researchers suspect that could be happening in the pregnant women.

Some study results hint that such upgrades may prepare a woman for motherhood. One analysis linked brain changes to how strongly a woman felt emotionally attached to her infant. And when women viewed pictures of their babies, several brain regions that reacted the most were ones that showed pregnancy-related change.

In addition, the affected brain areas overlapped with circuitry that's involved in figuring out what another person is thinking and feeling. That's a handy ability for a mother tending to an infant.

The idea of synapses being pruned in pregnancy makes a lot of sense, commented Bruce McEwen of Rockefeller University in New York, who studies hormonal effects on the brain but didn't participate in what he called a terrific study.

"The brain is being shaped all the time," he said, and "sex hormones are part of the whole orchestra of processes that change the brain structurally."</s>We’ve all heard of “mom brain,” but now a new study confirms that pregnancy really does alter the organ.

Research published by the Nature Neuroscience journal on Monday looked at brain scans of 25 women before they conceived and after they gave birth to their first child. The study found that there was a loss of gray matter in areas of the brain that help “register and consider how other people perceive things.”

Dr. Jen Ashton, ABC News’ chief women’s health correspondent, says that these alterations in the brain make women better mothers.

“[The study] actually found changes in parts of the structure and size of the brain,” she said. “The theory here is that those changes occurred to help streamline the moms’ brains to prepare for more nurturing, vigilance and teaching. We all know women who say, ‘You know, I wasn't that maternal until I had my own child, and then something clicked,’ or we become multitaskers.”

Watch the video above to learn more.

Researcher Elseline Hoekzema, who was pregnant with her first child during the study and is now expecting her second, said that she definitely noticed the change in herself after giving birth.

“I have to say honestly that at first I was a little intimidated by these changes,” she said. “However, having actually experienced this once, I indeed have the impression that pregnancy and motherhood has changed me, but in subtle ways. I am still me, but a bit of a different version.”

While researchers “suspect that the changes may be permanent,” they maintain that it is “pure speculation at this point.”</s>Pregnancy alters the size and structure of brain regions involved in understanding the thoughts, feelings, beliefs and intentions of others, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience. Mothers with the greatest degree of overall brain change scored higher than others when tested on the strength of their maternal bonds, the researchers discovered.

Start the conversation, or Read more at WHBF-TV Rock Island.</s>BUILDING a realistic model of the human brain is a crucial part of understanding brain development, as well as neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. Using human stem cells, researchers have created a 3-D model of the human brain – and new research investigates how similar it is to a real brain.

 A new study assesses the functionality of a 3-D brain model, shown here in a fluorescent cross-section. Currently, scientists typically use 2-D brain models. Latest developments in brain modeling, however, include creating functional 3-D brain-like tissue and entire “mini-brains” from human stem cells. New research investigates such a 3-D mini-brain model and examines its advantages over a 2-D brain model.

 The study was carried out by scientists at the Salk Institute, and the findings were published in the journal Cell Reports. The ability to grow a brain entirely out of human cells is not new, but it is quite recent and has been hailed by the authors of this new study as “a real breakthrough.” Salk Institute researchers cite the 2013 European study, in which scientists grew a cerebral organoid (CO) model in vitro from embryonic and adult stem cells. Researchers then placed the cells in a 3-D gel, where they developed into realistic layers that reflected an actual human brain.

 Before that, embryonic stem cells had been transformed into single-layered brain cells inside a petri dish, but this had the obvious limitation of being 2-D instead of the 3-D real brain. Limited 2-D brain models are widely used today, but Salk Institute researchers point to the advantages of 3-D CO models.

 “Being able to grow human brain cells as miniature three-dimensional organs was a real breakthrough,” says Joseph Ecker, the senior author of the new study, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, and professor and director of Salk’s Genomic Analysis Laboratory. “Now that we have a structurally realistic model, we can start to ask whether it is also functionally realistic, by looking at its genetic and epigenetic features.” Assessing genetic and epigenetic features of mini-brains

 led by Ecker compared early development COs with real brain tissue at the same early developmental stage. The team created COs for their analysis using a human embryonic cell line called H9. They chemically induced the cells into a neurodevelopmental pathway for 60 days. Then, researchers analyzed the mini-brains’ epigenetics, looking at the patterns of chemical markers that are responsible for activating or silencing genes.</s>Early attempts won’t quite resemble telepathy as we often imagine it. Our brains work in unique ways, and the way each of us thinks about a concept is influenced by our experiences and memories. This results in different patterns of brain activity, but if neuroscientists can learn one individual’s patterns, they may be able to trigger certain thoughts in that person’s brain. In theory, they could then use someone else’s brain activity to trigger these thoughts.Researchers have managed to get two people, sitting in different rooms, to play a game of 20 questions on a computer. The participants transmitted “yes” or “no” answers, thanks to EEG caps that monitored brain activity, with a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation triggering an electrical current in the other person’s brain. By pushing this further, it may be possible to, including the decisions they make.</s>Move Your Eyes To Stimulate Your Brain

Here’s a handy trick from Gib on how to kick your brain into high gear.

 Find more great intel at IFYLonDemand.com
Medical research reveals shrinkage in women’s brains as a result of pregnancy. Loss of gray matter in certain regions of the brain may make the brain more efficient and specialized for child-rearing. There is also evidence of links to long-term changes in brain.