Brain changes during pregnancy revealed in detailed map

Pregnancy brain really does exist, according to the first detailed map of changes in the human brain before, during and after the crucial nine months of pregnancy.

After 26 brain scans of a healthy 38-year-old woman, the scientists found “surprising findings”, including changes in areas associated with socialization and emotional processing, some of which were still evident two years after giving birth.

Further studies with more women are needed to determine the potential impact of these brain changes, the researchers said.

And these insights could help improve our understanding of the earliest signs of conditions like postpartum depression and pre-eclampsia.

“This is the first detailed map of the human brain across the entirety of pregnancy,” said study author Emily Jacobs, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“We’ve never seen the brain undergoing these changes before.

“We can finally see changes in the brain in real time.”

While the major changes that occur in the body during pregnancy are well known, less is understood about how and why the brain changes.

Many women talk about having “pregnancy brain” or “baby brain,” describing feelings of forgetfulness, fogginess, and lack of clarity.

Previous studies have focused on brain scans before and immediately after pregnancy, rather than throughout the entire pregnancy.

The brains studied in the study were Published in Nature NeuroscienceThat’s according to Elizabeth Krustil, a scientist at the Center for Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine.

At the time the study was being discussed, she was planning to conceive through IVF and now has a 4-year-old son.

Dr Krustil says it’s “cool” to study her own brain in detail and compare it to the brains of non-pregnant women.

“It’s definitely a bit strange to see your brain change in this way, but I also know that I needed the help of neuroscientists to get this done,” she says.

In nearly 80 percent of Dr Krustil’s brain, the volume of grey matter – the tissue that controls movement, emotion and memory – decreased by about 4 percent, and only recovered slightly after pregnancy.

However, white matter integrity — a measure of the health and quality of connections between brain regions — improved during the first and second trimester of pregnancy, then returned to normal levels soon after birth.

According to the researchers, the changes are similar to those that occur during puberty.

Rodent studies suggest that rodents may sensitize pregnant women to scents, making them more inclined to grooming, nest-building and housekeeping.

“But humans are more complicated than that,” Dr. Krustil says.

While she didn’t experience “mom brain” during her pregnancy, she said she did feel more tired and emotional in the later stages of pregnancy.

The next step will be to collect detailed brain images of 10 to 20 women, as well as data from a much larger sample at specific points in time, to capture a wider range of different experiences.

This way, “we can determine whether these changes help predict things like postpartum depression or understand how conditions like pre-eclampsia affect the brain,” Dr Krustil said.