Pregnant Brains Rewire Across Gestation, Redefining Maternal Neuroscience
A US-led Maternal Brain Project tracked brain changes in several mothers from before through after pregnancy using MRI, finding widespread cortical gray-matter loss during gestation with partial rebound after birth and notable shifts in cerebrovascular dynamics. Across 400 brain regions, about 97% showed alterations, suggesting the maternal brain adapts to motherhood rather than deteriorating. The work, involving about 20 participants over 18 months and more than 150 scans, aims to build an open-access database to answer questions about cognition, postpartum mood, and pregnancy complications, and to address historic underrepresentation of women in neuroimaging research.