For the first time, researchers have mapped a woman's brain throughout gestation. Remarkably, this had never been done before.
Being pregnant can bring on a variety of well-known changes - morning sickness, mood swings, unconventional food cravings, the list goes on and on. But until now, scientists have not had a good idea of what exactly is changing in the brain during the course of a nine-month pregnancy.
For the first time, researchers put together a comprehensive map of a woman’s brain throughout gestation, differing from previous studies which only took snapshots of the brain before and after pregnancy. While analyzing the time in between, the study authors found that nearly every part of the brain was affected, perhaps confirming what many parents already knew to be true.
“It’s been a very long journey,” says neuroscientist Elizabeth Chrastil, a co-author of the paper and the actual subject of the study. “We did 26 scans before, during, and after pregnancy” and found “some really remarkable things.” For example, the volume of gray matter decreased, likely representing a “fine-tuning” of brain circuits that allow the organ to prepare for a new phase of life.
Although this study only looked at one person, researchers plan to expand the breadth of their work and scan the brains of hundreds of pregnant women in hopes of gaining a better understanding of postpartum depression and other disorders, at last.