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The maternal brain is more flexible and responsive at rest: effective connectivity of the parental caregiving network in postpartum mothers

The field of neuroscience has largely overlooked the impact of motherhood on brain function outside the context of responses to infant stimuli. Here, we apply spectral dynamic causal modelling (spDCM) to resting-state fMRI data to investigate differences in brain function between a group of 40 first...

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Autores principales: Orchard, Edwina R., Voigt, Katharina, Chopra, Sidhant, Thapa, Tribikram, Ward, Phillip G. D., Egan, Gary F., Jamadar, Sharna D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10036465/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36959247
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31696-4
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author Orchard, Edwina R.
Voigt, Katharina
Chopra, Sidhant
Thapa, Tribikram
Ward, Phillip G. D.
Egan, Gary F.
Jamadar, Sharna D.
author_facet Orchard, Edwina R.
Voigt, Katharina
Chopra, Sidhant
Thapa, Tribikram
Ward, Phillip G. D.
Egan, Gary F.
Jamadar, Sharna D.
author_sort Orchard, Edwina R.
collection PubMed
description The field of neuroscience has largely overlooked the impact of motherhood on brain function outside the context of responses to infant stimuli. Here, we apply spectral dynamic causal modelling (spDCM) to resting-state fMRI data to investigate differences in brain function between a group of 40 first-time mothers at 1-year postpartum and 39 age- and education-matched women who have never been pregnant. Using spDCM, we investigate the directionality (top–down vs. bottom–up) and valence (inhibition vs excitation) of functional connections between six key left hemisphere brain regions implicated in motherhood: the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, parahippocampal gyrus, amygdala, and nucleus accumbens. We show a selective modulation of inhibitory pathways related to differences between (1) mothers and non-mothers, (2) the interactions between group and cognitive performance and (3) group and social cognition, and (4) differences related to maternal caregiving behaviour. Across analyses, we show consistent disinhibition between cognitive and affective regions suggesting more efficient, flexible, and responsive behaviour, subserving cognitive performance, social cognition, and maternal caregiving. Together our results support the interpretation of these key regions as constituting a parental caregiving network. The nucleus accumbens and the parahippocampal gyrus emerging as ‘hub’ regions of this network, highlighting the global importance of the affective limbic network for maternal caregiving, social cognition, and cognitive performance in the postpartum period.
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spelling pubmed-100364652023-03-25 The maternal brain is more flexible and responsive at rest: effective connectivity of the parental caregiving network in postpartum mothers Orchard, Edwina R. Voigt, Katharina Chopra, Sidhant Thapa, Tribikram Ward, Phillip G. D. Egan, Gary F. Jamadar, Sharna D. Sci Rep Article The field of neuroscience has largely overlooked the impact of motherhood on brain function outside the context of responses to infant stimuli. Here, we apply spectral dynamic causal modelling (spDCM) to resting-state fMRI data to investigate differences in brain function between a group of 40 first-time mothers at 1-year postpartum and 39 age- and education-matched women who have never been pregnant. Using spDCM, we investigate the directionality (top–down vs. bottom–up) and valence (inhibition vs excitation) of functional connections between six key left hemisphere brain regions implicated in motherhood: the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, parahippocampal gyrus, amygdala, and nucleus accumbens. We show a selective modulation of inhibitory pathways related to differences between (1) mothers and non-mothers, (2) the interactions between group and cognitive performance and (3) group and social cognition, and (4) differences related to maternal caregiving behaviour. Across analyses, we show consistent disinhibition between cognitive and affective regions suggesting more efficient, flexible, and responsive behaviour, subserving cognitive performance, social cognition, and maternal caregiving. Together our results support the interpretation of these key regions as constituting a parental caregiving network. The nucleus accumbens and the parahippocampal gyrus emerging as ‘hub’ regions of this network, highlighting the global importance of the affective limbic network for maternal caregiving, social cognition, and cognitive performance in the postpartum period. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-03-23 /pmc/articles/PMC10036465/ /pubmed/36959247 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31696-4 Text en © Crown 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Orchard, Edwina R.
Voigt, Katharina
Chopra, Sidhant
Thapa, Tribikram
Ward, Phillip G. D.
Egan, Gary F.
Jamadar, Sharna D.
The maternal brain is more flexible and responsive at rest: effective connectivity of the parental caregiving network in postpartum mothers
title The maternal brain is more flexible and responsive at rest: effective connectivity of the parental caregiving network in postpartum mothers
title_full The maternal brain is more flexible and responsive at rest: effective connectivity of the parental caregiving network in postpartum mothers
title_fullStr The maternal brain is more flexible and responsive at rest: effective connectivity of the parental caregiving network in postpartum mothers
title_full_unstemmed The maternal brain is more flexible and responsive at rest: effective connectivity of the parental caregiving network in postpartum mothers
title_short The maternal brain is more flexible and responsive at rest: effective connectivity of the parental caregiving network in postpartum mothers
title_sort maternal brain is more flexible and responsive at rest: effective connectivity of the parental caregiving network in postpartum mothers
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10036465/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36959247
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31696-4
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