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Do Pregnancy-Induced Brain Changes Reverse? The Brain of a Mother Six Years after Parturition
Neuroimaging researchers commonly assume that the brain of a mother is comparable to that of a nulliparous woman. However, pregnancy leads to pronounced gray matter volume reductions in the mother’s brain, which have been associated with maternal attachment towards the baby. Beyond two years postpar...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7912216/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33525512 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11020168 |
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author | Martínez-García, Magdalena Paternina-Die, María Barba-Müller, Erika Martín de Blas, Daniel Beumala, Laura Cortizo, Romina Pozzobon, Cristina Marcos-Vidal, Luis Fernández-Pena, Alberto Picado, Marisol Belmonte-Padilla, Elena Massó-Rodriguez, Anna Ballesteros, Agustin Desco, Manuel Vilarroya, Óscar Hoekzema, Elseline Carmona, Susanna |
author_facet | Martínez-García, Magdalena Paternina-Die, María Barba-Müller, Erika Martín de Blas, Daniel Beumala, Laura Cortizo, Romina Pozzobon, Cristina Marcos-Vidal, Luis Fernández-Pena, Alberto Picado, Marisol Belmonte-Padilla, Elena Massó-Rodriguez, Anna Ballesteros, Agustin Desco, Manuel Vilarroya, Óscar Hoekzema, Elseline Carmona, Susanna |
author_sort | Martínez-García, Magdalena |
collection | PubMed |
description | Neuroimaging researchers commonly assume that the brain of a mother is comparable to that of a nulliparous woman. However, pregnancy leads to pronounced gray matter volume reductions in the mother’s brain, which have been associated with maternal attachment towards the baby. Beyond two years postpartum, no study has explored whether these brain changes are maintained or instead return to pre-pregnancy levels. The present study tested whether gray matter volume reductions detected in primiparous women are still present six years after parturition. Using data from a unique, prospective neuroimaging study, we compared the gray matter volume of 25 primiparous and 22 nulliparous women across three sessions: before conception (n = 25/22), during the first months of postpartum (n = 25/21), and at six years after parturition (n = 7/5). We found that most of the pregnancy-induced gray matter volume reductions persist six years after parturition (classifying women as having been pregnant or not with 91.67% of total accuracy). We also found that brain changes at six years postpartum are associated with measures of mother-to-infant attachment. These findings open the possibility that pregnancy-induced brain changes are permanent and encourage neuroimaging studies to routinely include pregnancy-related information as a relevant demographic variable. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7912216 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-79122162021-02-28 Do Pregnancy-Induced Brain Changes Reverse? The Brain of a Mother Six Years after Parturition Martínez-García, Magdalena Paternina-Die, María Barba-Müller, Erika Martín de Blas, Daniel Beumala, Laura Cortizo, Romina Pozzobon, Cristina Marcos-Vidal, Luis Fernández-Pena, Alberto Picado, Marisol Belmonte-Padilla, Elena Massó-Rodriguez, Anna Ballesteros, Agustin Desco, Manuel Vilarroya, Óscar Hoekzema, Elseline Carmona, Susanna Brain Sci Article Neuroimaging researchers commonly assume that the brain of a mother is comparable to that of a nulliparous woman. However, pregnancy leads to pronounced gray matter volume reductions in the mother’s brain, which have been associated with maternal attachment towards the baby. Beyond two years postpartum, no study has explored whether these brain changes are maintained or instead return to pre-pregnancy levels. The present study tested whether gray matter volume reductions detected in primiparous women are still present six years after parturition. Using data from a unique, prospective neuroimaging study, we compared the gray matter volume of 25 primiparous and 22 nulliparous women across three sessions: before conception (n = 25/22), during the first months of postpartum (n = 25/21), and at six years after parturition (n = 7/5). We found that most of the pregnancy-induced gray matter volume reductions persist six years after parturition (classifying women as having been pregnant or not with 91.67% of total accuracy). We also found that brain changes at six years postpartum are associated with measures of mother-to-infant attachment. These findings open the possibility that pregnancy-induced brain changes are permanent and encourage neuroimaging studies to routinely include pregnancy-related information as a relevant demographic variable. MDPI 2021-01-28 /pmc/articles/PMC7912216/ /pubmed/33525512 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11020168 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Martínez-García, Magdalena Paternina-Die, María Barba-Müller, Erika Martín de Blas, Daniel Beumala, Laura Cortizo, Romina Pozzobon, Cristina Marcos-Vidal, Luis Fernández-Pena, Alberto Picado, Marisol Belmonte-Padilla, Elena Massó-Rodriguez, Anna Ballesteros, Agustin Desco, Manuel Vilarroya, Óscar Hoekzema, Elseline Carmona, Susanna Do Pregnancy-Induced Brain Changes Reverse? The Brain of a Mother Six Years after Parturition |
title | Do Pregnancy-Induced Brain Changes Reverse? The Brain of a Mother Six Years after Parturition |
title_full | Do Pregnancy-Induced Brain Changes Reverse? The Brain of a Mother Six Years after Parturition |
title_fullStr | Do Pregnancy-Induced Brain Changes Reverse? The Brain of a Mother Six Years after Parturition |
title_full_unstemmed | Do Pregnancy-Induced Brain Changes Reverse? The Brain of a Mother Six Years after Parturition |
title_short | Do Pregnancy-Induced Brain Changes Reverse? The Brain of a Mother Six Years after Parturition |
title_sort | do pregnancy-induced brain changes reverse? the brain of a mother six years after parturition |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7912216/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33525512 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11020168 |
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