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submitted 3 months ago by ArcticDagger@feddit.dk to c/science@lemmy.world
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[-] ArcticDagger@feddit.dk 16 points 3 months ago

From the article:

Squeezed in alongside their main projects, the investigation took eight years and included dozens of participants. The results, published in 2016, were revelatory [1]. Two to three months after giving birth, multiple regions of the cerebral cortex were, on average, 2% smaller than before conception. And most of them remained smaller two years later. Although shrinkage might evoke the idea of a deficit, the team showed that the degree of cortical reduction predicted the strength of a mother’s attachment to her infant, and proposed that pregnancy prepares the brain for parenthood.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.4458

[-] The_v@lemmy.world 21 points 3 months ago

So you've got to be dumbed down a little to love the little monsters... Checks out.

[-] Poem_for_your_sprog@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago

Don't forget the bone density loss from having such a large parasite for 9 months.

[-] cashmaggot@piefed.social 2 points 3 months ago

I read the whole thing, but I am also getting sleepy so I am not sure if I missed it. But did it say anywhere what directly caused the issue? I kept seeing them point to hormones and in theory (if I read this right) most of the brain returns back to normal post-pregnancy but that pre-dispositions for mental illness might be a cause of them not? And that the empathic network of our brain sort of remains scrunched perminantly? This is a poor summary, but that's how all I read it.

But the thing I was wondering if perhaps a nutritional deficit causes it? Because I know that forming a new body can be incredibly invasive. But I don't beleive children are little zombies that siphon brain matter. More so that perhaps that it is a very difficult game to keep up with nutritionally and then long-term malnutirition causes the brain to shrink. But also pain, which I believe I have read shrinks the brain when exposed to an extended time. I know that pregnancy is a series of uncomfortable pains. So perhaps that's a piece of the puzzle? I am not sure, just spitballing here.

[-] ArcticDagger@feddit.dk 2 points 3 months ago

I think those are all good questions that I don't think anyone really have conclusive answers to (yet). Hopefully the researchers will have the funds in the future to investigate those and more!

this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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