Journal
HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING
Volume 40, Issue 7, Pages 2143-2152Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/hbm.24513
Keywords
adolescence; cortex; hormones; MRI; neuroanatomy; plasticity; pregnancy
Funding
- Innovational Research Incentives Scheme grant [451-14-036]
- Miguel Servet Type I Grant [CP16/00096]
- Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad
- Instituto de Salud Carlos III [CP16/00096]
- Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III
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Mapping the impact of pregnancy on the human brain is essential for understanding the neurobiology of maternal caregiving. Recently, we found that pregnancy leads to a long-lasting reduction in cerebral gray matter volume. However, the morphometric features behind the volumetric reductions remain unexplored. Furthermore, the similarity between these reductions and those occurring during adolescence, another hormonally similar transitional period of life, still needs to be investigated. Here, we used surface-based methods to analyze the longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging data of a group of 25 first-time mothers (before and after pregnancy) and compare them to those of a group of 25 female adolescents (during 2 years of pubertal development). For both first-time mothers and adolescent girls, a monthly rate of volumetric reductions of 0.09 mm(3) was observed. In both cases, these reductions were accompanied by decreases in cortical thickness, surface area, local gyrification index, sulcal depth, and sulcal length, as well as increases in sulcal width. In fact, the changes associated with pregnancy did not differ from those that characterize the transition during adolescence in any of these measures. Our findings are consistent with the notion that the brain morphometric changes associated with pregnancy and adolescence reflect similar hormonally primed biological processes.
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