Pregnancy changes the variability of brain signaling

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Neuroscience
• Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

• Pregnancy is known to alter brain structure and activity.
• The impact of motherhood on neural dynamics, specifically neural variability, remains unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effects of becoming a mother on neural variability.
• To compare changes in neural variability over time between first-time mothers, second-time mothers, and nulliparous controls.

Main Methods:

• Longitudinal resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 110 women were analyzed.
• Participants included first-time mothers, second-time mothers, and a control group.
• Neural variability was assessed by analyzing moment-to-moment fluctuations in brain activity.

Main Results:

• Control women showed widespread reductions in neural variability, consistent with aging and repeated scanning.
• First-time and second-time mothers exhibited relative stability in neural variability, differing from controls.
• Higher neural variability correlated with younger age; age positively associated with attention and frontoparietal network changes in first-time mothers.

Conclusions:

• Pregnancy induces changes in the temporal dynamics of brain activity.
• Motherhood alters the typical age- and scan-related decline in neural variability.
• These alterations suggest potential compensatory neural adaptations following childbirth.