With implications for research around postpartum depression and other health issues, scientists have tracked the changes pregnancy brings to the female brain.
These changes weren’t subtle: Big shifts in what’s known as the brain’s “white matter” versus “gray matter” were observed, according to a team from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
“The maternal brain undergoes a choreographed change across gestation, and we are finally able to see it unfold,” said study co-author Emily Jacobs , an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at the university.
The study is thought to be the first to track brain changes throughout a pregnancy, rather than looking at discrete ‘snapshots’ taken at various points in gestation.
The study focused on the brain of one woman undergoing her first pregnancy.
Researchers led by Laura Pritschet , a PhD student working in Jacob’s lab, took scans of the woman’s brain every few weeks — starting before pregnancy, during gestation and then for two years after delivery.