Neurobiological changes during the peripartum period: implications for health and behavior

Cárdenas, Emilia F.; Kujawa, Autumn; Humphreys, Kathryn L.

doi:10.1093/scan/nsz091

Cited by 42 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 136 publications

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“…Although, outside the context of COVID-19, major depression is no more common in pregnant women than in non-pregnant women (Ashley, Harper, Arms-Chavez, & LoBello, 2016), pregnant women may be especially vulnerable to the depressogenic effects of stress and adversity related to the pandemic due to the dramatic biological and psychosocial changes that occur during pregnancy (Cárdenas et al, 2020). Given this plasticity, elevations in depressive symptoms in pregnancy, even when temporary, may have lasting effects on maternal and fetal neurobiology.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Women experience dramatic metabolic, hormonal, and physical changes during pregnancy and childbirth that occur in synchrony with the rapid development of the fetus (Cárdenas, Kujawa, & Humphreys, 2020). Because the prenatal period is marked by striking neurobiological plasticity, it is a time of enhanced sensitivity to the environment for both mothers and their fetuses (Bock, Wainstock, Braun, & Segal, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pregnancy during the pandemic: the impact of COVID-19-related stress on risk for prenatal depression

et al. 2021

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Background Pregnant women may be especially susceptible to negative events (i.e. adversity) related to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and negative affective responses to these events (i.e. stress). We examined the latent structure of stress and adversity related to the COVID-19 pandemic among pregnant women, potential antecedents of COVID-19-related stress and adversity in this population, and associations with prenatal depressive symptoms. Method We surveyed 725 pregnant women residing in the San Francisco Bay Area in March−May 2020, 343 of whom provided addresses that were geocoded and matched by census tract to measures of community-level risk. We compared their self-reported depressive symptoms to women matched on demographic factors and history of mental health difficulties who were pregnant prior to the pandemic. Results Women who were pregnant during the pandemic were nearly twice as likely to have possible depression than were matched women who were pregnant prior to the pandemic. Individual- and community-level factors tied to socioeconomic inequality were associated with latent factors of COVID-19-related stress and adversity. Beyond objective adversity, subjective stress responses were strongly associated with depressive symptoms during the pandemic. Conclusions Highlighting the role of subjective responses in vulnerability to prenatal depression and factors that influence susceptibility to COVID-19-related stress, these findings inform the allocation of resources to support recovery from this pandemic and future disease outbreaks. In addition to policies that mitigate disruptions to the environment due to the pandemic, treatments that focus on cognitions about the self and the environment may help to alleviate depressive symptoms in pregnant women.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pregnancy during the pandemic: the impact of COVID-19-related stress on risk for prenatal depression

et al. 2021

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“…Functionally, mothers’ brains exhibit heightened behavioral and neural sensitivity to infant cues ( Barba-Müller et al, 2019 , Barrett et al, 2012 , Cárdenas et al, 2019 , Kim et al, 2016b , Kim and Strathearn, 2016 , Rutherford et al, 2018 ). During pregnancy, EEG rather than fMRI is typically used as a neuroimaging technique.…”

Section: Neural Adaptation To Motherhoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

How stress can influence brain adaptations to motherhood

Kim

2021

Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology

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Highlights The brain plasticity supports human mothers’ transition to parenthood. Stress can negatively influence maternal brain responses to infant cues. The maternal brain is affected by stress in childhood and the perinatal period. Altered responses to infant cues are associated with suboptimal parenting behaviors. Implications for intervention and directions for future work are discussed.

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“…These studies have predominantly examined first-time parents, usually mothers, in early parenthood (first few years post-partum). Mothers show increased activation of brain networks including the reward/motivation network, salience and fear networks, and theory of mind networks in response to images and videos of their own infant, compared to unfamiliar infant stimuli (Cardenas, Kujawa, & Humphreys, 2019;Leibenluft, Gobbini, Harrison, & Haxby, 2004;Lorberbaum et al, 2002;Naaz, Knight, & Depue, 2019). Little is known about the cumulative hormonal and environmental impact of having multiple children, or parental brain function outside the context of responses to infant stimuli.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neuroprotective effects of motherhood on brain function in late-life: a resting state fMRI study

Orchard

Ward

Chopra

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The maternal brain undergoes structural and functional plasticity during pregnancy and the postpartum period. Little is known about functional plasticity outside caregiving-specific contexts, and whether changes persist across the lifespan. Structural neuroimaging studies suggest that parenthood may confer a protective effect against the ageing process, however it is unknown whether parenthood is associated with functional brain differences in late-life. We examined the relationship between resting state functional connectivity and number of children parented in 220 healthy older females (73.82±3.53years) and 252 healthy older males (73.95±3.50years). We compared patterns of resting state functional connectivity with three different models of age-related functional change to assess whether these effects may be functionally neuroprotective for the ageing human parental brain. No relationship between functional connectivity and number of children was obtained for males. For females, we found widespread decreasing functional connectivity with increasing number of children parented, with increased segregation between networks, decreased connectivity between hemispheres, and decreased connectivity between anterior and posterior regions. The patterns of functional connectivity related to the number of children an older woman has parented were in the opposite direction to those usually associated with age-related cognitive decline, suggesting that motherhood may be beneficial for brain function in late-life. attention, ventral attention, default mode, somatomotor, limbic, subcortical and visual; as classified by Yeo et al. (Thomas Yeo et al., 2011)). A: MNI-space network graph of the edges associated with motherhood (left: axial; top: coronal; bottom: sagittal). The nodes are weighted by degree, such that nodes with a higher number of connections are larger. Edges are weighted by the strength of Spearman's Rho, such that edges with stronger connectivity are darker and thicker B: Segregation and Integration: Functional connectivity within and between networks. Within-network connections lie on the diagonal (e.g. visual-visual), and between-network connections lie on the offdiagonal (e.g. visual-default mode). The numbers denote how many more edges are observed between networks, compared to what we would expect by chance, after adjusting for the capacity of the network, e.g we observed 7.1 times more edges between the frontoparietal network and the visual network than we would expect by chance. All edges related to motherhood are negatively weighted, therefore decreasing connectivity between networks (off-diagonal) indicates increased network segregation with increasing number of children mothered.

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Neurobiological changes during the peripartum period: implications for health and behavior

Cited by 42 publications

References 136 publications

Pregnancy during the pandemic: the impact of COVID-19-related stress on risk for prenatal depression

Pregnancy during the pandemic: the impact of COVID-19-related stress on risk for prenatal depression

How stress can influence brain adaptations to motherhood

Neuroprotective effects of motherhood on brain function in late-life: a resting state fMRI study

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