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Postpartum Gray Matter Changes in the Auditory Cortex
After giving birth, a mother’s brain undergoes functional adaptations fostering the ability to properly respond to the needs of her newborn. Tuning into and understanding her baby’s crying is among the top skills required and executed in the early stages of motherhood. However, surprisingly little i...
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/PMC8658382/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34884318 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm10235616 |
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author | Luders, Eileen Gaser, Christian Gingnell, Malin Engman, Jonas Sundström Poromaa, Inger Kurth, Florian |
author_facet | Luders, Eileen Gaser, Christian Gingnell, Malin Engman, Jonas Sundström Poromaa, Inger Kurth, Florian |
author_sort | Luders, Eileen |
collection | PubMed |
description | After giving birth, a mother’s brain undergoes functional adaptations fostering the ability to properly respond to the needs of her newborn. Tuning into and understanding her baby’s crying is among the top skills required and executed in the early stages of motherhood. However, surprisingly little is known about potential changes in the anatomy of the maternal auditory cortex. Therefore, in this longitudinal study, we compared the brains of 14 healthy women between immediate postpartum (within 1–2 days of childbirth) and late postpartum (at 4–6 weeks after childbirth), focusing on areas of the primary, secondary, and higher auditory cortex. We observed significant volume increases within all auditory regions and subregions examined, which might reflect rapid adaptations of the mother’s brain in relation to reliably interpreting her newborn’s cries. There was also a trend for a larger postpartum increase within right-hemispheric regions compared to left-hemispheric regions that might be specifically linked to the ability to discern the pitch, sound, and volume of a baby’s crying. Follow-up research is warranted to replicate these findings and evaluate their current interpretation. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8658382 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-86583822021-12-10 Postpartum Gray Matter Changes in the Auditory Cortex Luders, Eileen Gaser, Christian Gingnell, Malin Engman, Jonas Sundström Poromaa, Inger Kurth, Florian J Clin Med Article After giving birth, a mother’s brain undergoes functional adaptations fostering the ability to properly respond to the needs of her newborn. Tuning into and understanding her baby’s crying is among the top skills required and executed in the early stages of motherhood. However, surprisingly little is known about potential changes in the anatomy of the maternal auditory cortex. Therefore, in this longitudinal study, we compared the brains of 14 healthy women between immediate postpartum (within 1–2 days of childbirth) and late postpartum (at 4–6 weeks after childbirth), focusing on areas of the primary, secondary, and higher auditory cortex. We observed significant volume increases within all auditory regions and subregions examined, which might reflect rapid adaptations of the mother’s brain in relation to reliably interpreting her newborn’s cries. There was also a trend for a larger postpartum increase within right-hemispheric regions compared to left-hemispheric regions that might be specifically linked to the ability to discern the pitch, sound, and volume of a baby’s crying. Follow-up research is warranted to replicate these findings and evaluate their current interpretation. MDPI 2021-11-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8658382/ /pubmed/34884318 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm10235616 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Luders, Eileen Gaser, Christian Gingnell, Malin Engman, Jonas Sundström Poromaa, Inger Kurth, Florian Postpartum Gray Matter Changes in the Auditory Cortex |
title | Postpartum Gray Matter Changes in the Auditory Cortex |
title_full | Postpartum Gray Matter Changes in the Auditory Cortex |
title_fullStr | Postpartum Gray Matter Changes in the Auditory Cortex |
title_full_unstemmed | Postpartum Gray Matter Changes in the Auditory Cortex |
title_short | Postpartum Gray Matter Changes in the Auditory Cortex |
title_sort | postpartum gray matter changes in the auditory cortex |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8658382/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34884318 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm10235616 |
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