how motherhood affects the brain
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becoming a mother? Guess what, not on ly youre belly is growing!!
But also youre brain!
How Motherhood affects the brain
To become a mum and taking care for a baby, either youre own ore a adopted child, does change youre life. And it does change youre brain
„New“ Mothers are very focused on there first baby. It is hard for them, to think ore talk about something else...this is not just a habit ore even voluntary behavier, there brains force them to that new behavior and sets awareness and attetion strongly on to the babys needs.
There are so many brain regions affected that i did not go too deep into detail, therefore i present a lot of those regions with a short description
Hypothalamus; (highest control center of the human hormonsystem, (link between nervous and hormon-‐ system) contain receptors for hormons such as estradiol, progesterone, prolactin, oxytocin, vasopressin and opioids. These hormones help in activating maternal behavior in the brain and furthermore have an impact in other areas such as:
Amygdala (Center of emotions, emotional learning, happiness, fear, sense for oncoming threat) increased activity in mothers affect and stimulus salience
Prefrontal cortex (integration of information, monitoring parental behaviers) also increase of attention rate expansion and working memory skills improvement. Helps the mothers to identify infant cues
Thalamus, parietal cortex and brain stem are involved for processing smell, touch and voice infomation related to the baby.
Areas in the hyppocampus are connected with the mesolimbic dopamine system. Intensiv contact with the child activates this system for reward processing, this „keeps mothers going“ and is very important to influence maternal motivation. The Thalamus, parietal cortex and brainstem also serve important functions for the processing of infant-‐related somatosensory information, such as smell and touch. The prefrontal cortex is involved in integrating these information and monitoring parental behaviers.
19 „new“ mothers have had two brain scans, one 3 to 4 weeks after giving birth and the second 3 to 4 months postpartum. They where all in good health, around 33 years old and in a intact partnership. The outcome of the results are quite amazing and stand on the opposite side of what we usually assumed; motherhood is mostly quite stressfull but does not require a big deal of brain work, you just have to get used to it all... VERY WRONG!
The scans of all 19 mothers did show increased grey matter volumes (grey matter is a major component of the central nervous system, consisting of neuronal cell bodies, glial cells and capillaries) in the prefrontal cortex (problem solving) parietal lobes and midbrain areas. Increased gray matter volume in the midbrain including the hypothalamus, substantia nigra, and amygdala. So this is just amazing, the brain is actually growing in a short time as 3-‐4 months postpartum! Note that it does not mean these regions are only highli activated, they really increase in density!
A whole range of brand new memories are formed when taking care of an infant, wich lets regions in the hippocampus (memory and affect regulation) growth. learning and memory skills do improve (studys on rodents )
Working memory and executive control are increased, also the ability to self control and failure correction are modified.
Most mothers carry there new born babys on the left arm, (hearing mums heartbeat calms them down) therefore the right side of thalamus becomes increased in order to process all this visual, akustik and touch information up to the right side cortex, coming from the left side of the mothers body.
The baby is a enormous, almost endlessly stimulus to the mother (and vice versa).it triggers activation in different areas of the brain, these areas together allow for maternal behavior. Foster mothers show the same maternal behavier, and improvement of learning and memory skills, so it is not all about hormonal influences. this changes in the brain do make a lot of sense. The little creature comes, however, into someones life, totally helpless and entirely dependent on the parents. It communicates mostly by screaming wich can be very stressful to parents. To find out the needs and act quickly to keep the baby healthy and happy is a criticala task. Thanks to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, wich plays a important role in attention, cognitive flexibility and working memory, helps to identify infant cues and furthermore allows for the decision – making and action planning process. For example, the Baby cries, finding out that it is far to warm inside the house plus to much clothing, quickly unwrapp it bevor body temperature raises to a dangerous level.
This course helped me in so many different ways, to understand that it is not just about free will ore decisions of myself ore members of familiy/friends, to choose voluntarily and deliberatly on actions and moods, even thoughts! The brain has ist own secret life and sometimes you end up wondering why you act, ore feel certain things without having a clue how you ended up in that state of mind.
I gained confidence by learning something new again, it helped me to focus my mind and it seems that my concentration skills are better than before. When i see disabled people (mentally ore physical) this days i think about them and there condition with more attention, i wonder how they cope and how much they might know about there condition. i was sometines feeling uneasy ore pitiful even insecure, but now im more understanding and less alienated.
Im very grateful for all i have learned. After my daughter was born i was very tense and extremely worried about her.I think my pulse never came down for weeks and i jumped to the top of the roof when she made the smallest squeak. I guess my amygdala had the size of a tennis ball back then I couldnt help it, horrible pictures came up on me of how that little baby girl would fall out of my arms, off the balcony and other terrbile accidents. I still remember the overreaching fear very clearly and i wondered, why on earth i could climb the himalaya, dive with sharks, living in the tropics, but to become a mother really scared me! Now i have learned that i didn make it up ore choose to overreact out of boredom, i analyze this feelings as normal side effects and i can tell that friends of mine had similiar experiences. Mothers whom i know for a long time reported me after asking a few questions that they have noticed but never gave another thought to the changes, differences in thinking and acting as a mother. i became a different person; a caring mom.
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References: !1) information, tables and pictures: (page4 and 5) the plasticity of human maternal brain: Longitudinal Changes in Brain anatomy during the early postpartum period)
(2)Kinsley CH, Madonia L, Giford GW, Tureski K, Griffin GR, Liowry C, Williams J, Collins J, McLearie H, Lambert KG. Motherhood improves learning and memory: Neural activity in rats is enhanced by pregnancy and the demands of rearing offspring. Nature 1999; 402: 137-‐138
1)www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20939669
http://ssl.br.de/mediathek/video/sendungen/geist-‐und-‐gehirn/geist-‐gehirn-‐junge-‐mutter100.html (german spoken by dr. manfred spitzer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_brain