Scientists have taken the most detailed picture yet of the dynamic brain changes that unfold during a pregnancy and early infancy.
Neuroscientists at the University of California at Santa Barbara captured MRI scans of a pregnant woman before, during and after her pregnancy. MUST CREDIT: Jeff Liang for The Washington Post
When neuroscientist Liz Chrastil and her husband were ready to start her family, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to study herself. With a team of collaborators who have also studied the brain during menopause and the menstrual cycle, she slid into the scanner 26 times - before, during and after her pregnancy - providing an unprecedented view of a transformative event in human biology that has long been overlooked by science.
The experience of becoming a mother affects a person’s “biology, cognition, her sense of self and place in society - and even her risk of brain decline in late life,” Sharna Jamadar, a neuroscientist at Monash University in Australia who was not involved in the study, said in an email. “Despite these massive changes that occur during pregnancy, we have a largely poor understanding of exactly what changes occur in the brain during this time.
A shrinking brain may sound like it can’t possibly be a good thing, but Susana Carmona, a neuroscientist at Gregorio Marañón General University Hospital in Madrid who was not involved in the study, has found that the decrease in gray matter volume over pregnancy may be linked to increased levels of maternal attachment, suggesting that the brain is adapting for the challenge ahead.
Chrastil said that she didn’t experience “mom brain,” even though she has the rare ability to quantify with precision exactly how much her gray matter shrank - about 4 percent. She pointed out that most new mothers are sleep deprived, which could play a role in how well people feel their brains are working.
It’s easy to conceptualize the brain as a static organ, but research has shown that its ability to change and adapt is key to its function. During adolescence, brain cells are pruned in a process that improves its efficiency. But even in adulthood, and even on short time scales, the brain changes.
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