Parity is associated with cognitive function and brain age in both females and males

Ning, Kaida; Zhao, Lu; Franklin, Meredith; Matloff, William; Batta, Ishaan; Arzouni, Nibal; Sun, Fengzhu; Toga, Arthur W.

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-63014-7

Cited by 49 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(28 reference statements)

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“…This evidence of structural neuroprotection of parenthood has also been found in males [15]. In addition, middle-aged parents in the UK Biobank have faster response times and fewer errors on visual memory tasks than childless men and women [15].…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 52%

Relationship between parenthood and cortical thickness in late adulthood

et al. 2020

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Pregnancy and the early postpartum period alter the structure of the brain; particularly in regions related to parental care. However, the enduring effects of this period on human brain structure and cognition in late life is unknown. Here we use magnetic resonance imaging to examine differences in cortical thickness related to parenthood in late life, for both sexes. In 235 healthy older women, we find a positive relationship between parity (number of children parented) and memory performance in mothers. Parity was also associated with differences in cortical thickness in women in the parahippocampus, precuneus, cuneus and pericalcarine sulcus. We also compared non-parents to parents of one child, in a sub-sample of older women (N = 45) and men (N = 35). For females, six regions differed in cortical thickness between parents and non-parents; these regions were consistent with those seen earlier in life in previous studies. For males, five regions differed in cortical thickness between parents and non-parents. We are first to reveal parenthood-related brain differences in late-life; our results are consistent with previously identified areas that are altered during pregnancy and the postpartum period. This study provides preliminary evidence to suggest that neural changes associated with early stages of parenthood persist into older age, and for women, may be related to marginally better cognitive outcomes.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 52%

Relationship between parenthood and cortical thickness in late adulthood

et al. 2020

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“…That is, parents showed "younger-looking" brains with increasing number of children, suggesting a neuroprotective effect of parenthood on brain-age. In addition, middle-aged parents have faster response times and fewer errors on visual memory tasks than childless men and women (Ning et al, 2020). In healthy older adults aged over 70-years, we reported that cortical thickness differs between parents and non-parents of both sexes (Orchard et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…Taken together, current evidence is indicative of a life-long effect of parenthood on the human brain, which, at least in mothers, may be neuroprotective in ageing (de Lange et al, 2019;Ning et al, 2020;Orchard et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…Notably, all existing studies of the influence of parenthood on the late life brain are limited by the sparse information on parenting in their sample (de Lange et al, 2019;Ning et al, 2020;Orchard et al, 2020). This limitation reflects the fact that existing studies have reported the effects of parenthood on brain structure and function using large datasets acquired for other purposes (here, to examine the effects of aspirin exposure on brain structure; de Lange et al 2019and Ning et al (2020) used data from the UK BioBank). Furthermore, it is important to note that reproductive experience is related to other traits which impact brain health in human ageing, including exposure to sex steroid hormones.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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. Previous studies have reported neuroprotective effects of parenthood on brain structure later in life in mothers (de Lange et al, 2019;Ning et al, 2020;Orchard et al, 2020), and fathers (Ning et al, 2020 ageing effects, rather, that patterns of age-related changes in the brain are less evident in women with more children than those with fewer children. This is consistent with previous results suggesting mothers show "younger-looking" brains (e.g., de Lange et al, 2019).…”

Section: Hypothesis 3: Increased Network Segregationmentioning

confidence: 91%

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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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Connections between reproductive health and cognitive aging among women enrolled in the HCHS/SOL and SOL‐INCA

Stickel,

Tarraf,

Kuwayama

et al. 2023

Alzheimer's & Dementia

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INTRODUCTIONReproductive health history may contribute to cognitive aging and risk for Alzheimer's disease, but this is understudied among Hispanic/Latina women.METHODSParticipants included 2126 Hispanic/Latina postmenopausal women (44 to 75 years) from the Study of Latinos‐Investigation of Neurocognitive Aging. Survey linear regressions separately modeled the associations between reproductive health measures (age at menarche, history of oral contraceptive use, number of pregnancies, number of live births, age at menopause, female hormone use at Visit 1, and reproductive span) with cognitive outcomes at Visit 2 (performance, 7‐year change, and mild cognitive impairment [MCI] prevalence).RESULTSYounger age at menarche, oral contraceptive use, lower pregnancies, lower live births, and older age at menopause were associated with better cognitive performance. Older age at menarche was protective against cognitive change. Hormone use was linked to lower MCI prevalence.DISCUSSIONSeveral aspects of reproductive health appear to impact cognitive aging among Hispanic/Latina women.

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Parity is associated with cognitive function and brain age in both females and males

Cited by 49 publications

References 34 publications

Relationship between parenthood and cortical thickness in late adulthood

Relationship between parenthood and cortical thickness in late adulthood

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

Connections between reproductive health and cognitive aging among women enrolled in the HCHS/SOL and SOL‐INCA

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