Squeezed in alongside their main projects, the investigation took eight years and included dozens of participants. The results, published in 2016, were revelatory [1]. Two to three months after giving birth, multiple regions of the cerebral cortex were, on average, 2% smaller than before conception. And most of them remained smaller two years later. Although shrinkage might evoke the idea of a deficit, the team showed that the degree of cortical reduction predicted the strength of a mother’s attachment to her infant, and proposed that pregnancy prepares the brain for parenthood.
I read the whole thing, but I am also getting sleepy so I am not sure if I missed it. But did it say anywhere what directly caused the issue? I kept seeing them point to hormones and in theory (if I read this right) most of the brain returns back to normal post-pregnancy but that pre-dispositions for mental illness might be a cause of them not? And that the empathic network of our brain sort of remains scrunched perminantly? This is a poor summary, but that’s how all I read it.
But the thing I was wondering if perhaps a nutritional deficit causes it? Because I know that forming a new body can be incredibly invasive. But I don’t beleive children are little zombies that siphon brain matter. More so that perhaps that it is a very difficult game to keep up with nutritionally and then long-term malnutirition causes the brain to shrink. But also pain, which I believe I have read shrinks the brain when exposed to an extended time. I know that pregnancy is a series of uncomfortable pains. So perhaps that’s a piece of the puzzle? I am not sure, just spitballing here.
I think those are all good questions that I don’t think anyone really have conclusive answers to (yet). Hopefully the researchers will have the funds in the future to investigate those and more!
From the article:
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.4458
So you’ve got to be dumbed down a little to love the little monsters… Checks out.
Don’t forget the bone density loss from having such a large parasite for 9 months.
I read the whole thing, but I am also getting sleepy so I am not sure if I missed it. But did it say anywhere what directly caused the issue? I kept seeing them point to hormones and in theory (if I read this right) most of the brain returns back to normal post-pregnancy but that pre-dispositions for mental illness might be a cause of them not? And that the empathic network of our brain sort of remains scrunched perminantly? This is a poor summary, but that’s how all I read it.
But the thing I was wondering if perhaps a nutritional deficit causes it? Because I know that forming a new body can be incredibly invasive. But I don’t beleive children are little zombies that siphon brain matter. More so that perhaps that it is a very difficult game to keep up with nutritionally and then long-term malnutirition causes the brain to shrink. But also pain, which I believe I have read shrinks the brain when exposed to an extended time. I know that pregnancy is a series of uncomfortable pains. So perhaps that’s a piece of the puzzle? I am not sure, just spitballing here.
I think those are all good questions that I don’t think anyone really have conclusive answers to (yet). Hopefully the researchers will have the funds in the future to investigate those and more!