Changes in anxiety and cognition due to reproductive experience: A review of data from rodent and human mothers

Working memory in pregnant women: Relation to estrogen and antepartum depression

“…Not all women showed reduced memory. To the contrary, a high level of WM proficiency was detected in normal pregnancies, consistent with certain adaptationist perspectives (Macbeth & Luine, 2010;Hampson, 2008;Anderson & Rutherford, 2012). While human research on pregnancy and cognition has tended to focus almost exclusively on memory deficits, from a biologist's perspective a more interesting outcome is perhaps the positive (and potentially enduring) adaptations of the brain that may occur to promote maternal care and infant fitness.…”

“…21 interest in light of observations from other species implying that pregnancy is a time of active neurocognitive re-organization (Macbeth & Luine, 2010;Anderson & Rutherford, 2012), a point we will return to below.…”

“…24 active cognitive re-organization (Macbeth & Luine, 2010;Anderson & Rutherford, 2012), when the brain adapts in ecologically relevant ways by facilitating cognitive functions relevant to the current reproductive phase and the emerging demands of child-rearing. Working memory, the ability to keep track of and juggle competing short-term demands, would certainly qualify as one such function.…”

Influence of late-age births on maternal longevity

“…Furthermore, the antagonistic pleiotropy theory notes that genes responsible for increased fitness in the younger fertile organism may contribute to decreased fitness later in life [29]. Biological mechanisms proposed to explain the association between pregnancy and longevity include the protective effect of delayed menopause and exposure to estrogen (as mentioned previously) [25,26], increased secretion of sex hormone during pregnancy [30e33], and the detrimental effect of repeated pregnancies resulting in neural or metabolic alterations [34,35]. Finally, environmental and psychosocial factors influencing postreproductive mortality include nutritional intake and quality of medical care, which vary between different populations and affect maternal health in general and reproductive health in particular [11,36e38].…”

Measuring maternal mental health using the Dutch Four-Dimensional Symptom Questionnaire (4DSQ): Pregnancy-related item bias across the perinatal period

“…Like some somatization symptoms, the thresholds for some anxiety symptoms appeared to be elevated in pregnant women, too. There is indeed some evidence that changes in the hormonal balance, the brain or the neurologic system inhibit pregnant women's reactions to frightening circumstances (Vierin and Bouissou, 2001;Glynn et al, 2004;Di Pietro et al, 2005;Klinkenberg et al, 2009;Macbeth and Luine, 2010;Roos et al, 2011) In contrast to somatization and anxiety, the thresholds for many distress symptoms were reduced in pregnant women, as well as in young mothers. One might wonder whether the reduced threshold for distress has an adaptive function for pregnant women and young mothers.…”