Welcome to the time of brain shrinkage. Parenting makes the heart grow fonder, and the brain grow ..
. smaller? Several studies have revealed that the brain loses volume across the transition to parenthood. But are still figuring out what these changes mean for parents.
In a new study that looked at brain change in first-time fathers, my colleagues and I found that but also more sleep problems and mental health symptoms. These results might point to a cost of caregiving, traditionally shouldered by women but increasingly borne by men also. , so it is no surprise that it might also sculpt the brain.
Research in rodents first identified during pregnancy and parenthood. A new body of research is unearthing similar effects in human parents, too. In a pair of studies, researchers recruited first-time mothers for a brain scan that occurred before they became pregnant and then scanned them again a few months after birth.
– the layer of brain tissue that contains neuronal cell bodies – who did not become mothers. Although a shrinking brain sounds bad, researchers theorized that this , helping process social information more efficiently and, therefore, facilitating sensitive caregiving. In keeping with this hypothesis, studies have linked maternal brain changes with women’s and with their responses to images of their infants.
Women who lost more gray matter volume . Most studies of the parental brain have focused on women, but emerging evidence suggests that similar brain changes.
