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The maternal 'baby brain' revisited

Nature Neuroscience volume 20, pages 134–135 (2017)Cite this article

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Pregnancy results in changes to maternal physiology and brain that may extend into older age. New results show that pregnancy-induced reductions in gray matter volume remain 2 years after childbirth in humans.

Pregnancy and childbirth are dramatic, life-changing events from both a social and biological perspective. The mother and fetus must maintain a delicate balance between cooperation and competition, as fetal demands, acting through the placenta, challenge the physiology of the mother1. To maintain a viable fetus, a woman's metabolic, hormonal, gastrointestinal, immune and cardiovascular systems are veritably hijacked by the fetal–placental unit. For example, maternal cardiac output, circulating blood volume and absorption of water, sodium and iron all increase by 50% or more during gestation. In contrast, maternal pulmonary function and insulin sensitivity decrease during gestation. However, few studies have investigated the short- and long-term repercussions of pregnancy on the architecture of the maternal brain and the lifelong consequences for brain health. New evidence presented by Hoekzema et al.2 in this issue of Nature Neuroscience provides insight into this fascinating and evolving topic, as they find long-lasting reductions in gray matter volume of several brain structures involved in social cognition in first-time human mothers.

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Figure 1: Effect of pregnancy on maternal brain, behavior and physiology across the lifespan.

Debbie Maizels / Springer Nature

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cindy K. Barha and Liisa A.M. Galea are at the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.,

    Cindy K Barha & Liisa A M Galea

  2. Cindy K. Barha is in the Department of Physical Therapy, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.,

    Cindy K Barha

  3. Liisa A.M. Galea is in the Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.,

    Liisa A M Galea

Authors
  1. Cindy K Barha
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  2. Liisa A M Galea
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Correspondence to Liisa A M Galea.

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Barha, C., Galea, L. The maternal 'baby brain' revisited. Nat Neurosci 20, 134–135 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4473

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