SAN DIEGO, CA — Pregnancy and birthing have profound, often long-lasting, effects on brain physiology, mood and behavior. New findings on the neurobiology of the maternal experience were presented at Neuroscience 2022, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.
Maternal mental health conditions are among the most common complication of pregnancy and childbirth. Of the roughly 3.5 million people who give birth each year in the United States, approximately 20% will be impacted by mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety. Left untreated, these illnesses can have long-term negative impacts on parents, babies, families, and society. Research into the brain changes associated with maternal experiences is beginning to reveal the neural mechanisms underlying adaptive changes and perinatal mental illnesses.
Today’s new findings show that:
“The neuroscience findings presented today touch on different aspects of the transition to motherhood at multiple levels of investigation and in varied brain areas,” says session moderator Jodi Pawluski, a neuroscientist and psychotherapist whose research is affiliated with the Université de Rennes 1 and who studies how motherhood changes the brain. “These investigations into the maternal brain provide important insights into the neuroscience of parenting and have implications for targeting and treating perinatal mental illness.”
This research was supported by national funding agencies including the National Institutes of Health and private funding organizations. Find out more about maternal experience and the brain on BrainFacts.org.
Press Conference Summary
- Reproductive experiences, such as pregnancy and birth, exert long-lasting effects on the structural and functional organization of the maternal brain.
- Studies in animal models are identifying physiological mechanisms that may underlie long-term brain changes associated with reproduction.
Vulnerability to Postpartum Anhedonia and Underlying Neuroimmune and Resting State Function in Sprague Dawley Rats
Janace Gifford jgifford@udel.edu, Abstract 146.21
The Long-Term Effects of Reproductive Experience on the Maternal Brain
Jennifer Chan, jennifer.chan2@mssm.edu, Abstract 115.14
Circuit Mechanisms Mediating Pro-Safety Network States in Rodent Affective Networks
Jamie Maguire, Jamie.maguire@tufts.edu, Abstract 116.11