Quantification of structural magnetic resonance studies in neuroimaging “Neuroanatomical changes induced by pregnancy”

The vast majority of women undergo pregnancy at least once in their life. However, very little is known on how this process affects the human brain. Recently, our group has demonstrated that pregnancy leads to long-lasting changes in the women’s brain anatomy. This study found extensive gray matter volume reductions in regions related to empathy and social cognition, suggesting that the mother’s brain undergoes an adaptive process serving for the transition into motherhood. The object of the present study is to gain further insight on the biological mechanisms underlying the previously detected volumetric reductions associated with pregnancy. For this purpose, we compared longitudinally (before and after pregnancy) different morphological metrics of the brain between first time mothers and fathers and a set of control groups. We found that women who underwent pregnancy exhibit a flattening of the neural gray matter structure, similar to that occurring during the adolescence period. Also, male couples exhibited similar but less pronounced changes in some of the morphometric changes across this period. Our findings suggest that the observed neural changes might be caused by the interplay between hormone-related changes during pregnancy and environmental stimuli.