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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...

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Autores principales: Luders, Eileen, Gaser, Christian, Gingnell, Malin, Engman, Jonas, Sundström Poromaa, Inger, Kurth, Florian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
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.
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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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