How pregnancy changes the brains of parents

Pregnancy and childbirth have profound, often long-lasting effects
on brain physiology, mood, and behavior.
New findings on the neurobiology of maternal experience were presented at the 2022 annual meeting of the Neuroscience for Neuroscience, the world's largest source
of emerging news about brain science and health.
Maternal mental health is one of the
most common complications of pregnancy and childbirth.
In the United States, about 3.
5 million people give birth each year, and about 20% of them are affected
by mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.
If left untreated, these diseases can have long-term negative effects
on parents, infants, families and society.
Studies of brain changes associated with maternal experiences are beginning to reveal the neural mechanisms
behind adaptive changes and perinatal psychiatric disorders.
Today's new findings show:

• In rodent models, susceptibility or elasticity to postpartum depression is associated with changes in neuroimmune markers and hormones that can serve as risk biomarkers of the disease or possible therapeutic targets
  .
  (Janace Gifford, University of Delaware)

• Factors that regulate gene expression in learning and memory networks may have long-term effects
  in regulating maternal experience in mouse brains.
  (Ian S.
  Maze, Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai)

• The long-term antidepressant effect of isopregnenolone on postpartum depression may be due to the effect on the coordination
  of activity in brain regions related to mood.
  (Jamie Maguire, Tufts University School of Medicine)

Moderator Jodi Pawluski said: "The neuroscience research findings published today address different aspects of the transition to motherhood, involving multiple levels of investigation and different brain regions
.
" She is a neuroscientist and psychotherapist, and her research is attached to Université de Rennes 1, studying how mothers change the brain
.
"These studies of the maternal brain provide important insights into the neuroscience of parenting and have implications
for targeting and treating perinatal psychiatric disorders.
" The study was supported
by state funding agencies and privately funded organizations, including the National Institutes of Health.
Find out more about
the mother's experience and brain on BrainFacts.
org.
Reproductive experiences, such as pregnancy and childbirth, have lasting effects
on the structural and functional organization of the mother's brain.
- Studies in animal models are identifying underlying physiological mechanisms
that may be the underlying long-term brain changes associated with reproduction.
Effects of postpartum anhedonia on neuroimmune and resting state function in rats

• Nearly 70 percent of women experience sadness, lack of interest (anhedonia), anxiety, or other mood disorders in the weeks after a child's birth, and about 20 percent of them may develop more severe, persistent postpartum depression
  .
  

• Individual female rats showed varying degrees of vulnerability to postpartum anhedonia; People with postpartum anhedonia are also more anxious and less willing to care for their pups
  .
  

• Some neuroimmune factor and hormone levels were altered in rats prone to postpartum anhedonia compared to unaffected animals, suggesting that it is possible to identify biomarkers that predict the risk of postpartum depression and use them as new therapeutic targets
  .
  

Long-term effects of fertility experience on the maternal brain Jennifer Chan, jennifer.
chan2@mssm.
edu, abstract 115.
14

• Our knowledge is limited
  about the molecular mechanisms by which pregnancy, childcare, and stressful experiences interact to produce long-term changes in brain health.
  - Mice that had given birth performed better on spatial learning tasks, showing distinct patterns of gene expression in the hippocampus
  , a key brain structure for learning and memory.
  However, chronic stress in the postpartum period completely eliminates these adaptive changes
  .
  

• Factors influencing hippocampal gene expression may mediate long-term brain changes
  associated with reproduction.
  

Circuit mechanisms of pro-safety network states in media rodent emotional networks, Jamie Maguire, Jamie.
maguire@tufts.
edu, abstract 116.
11

• Brexanolone (isopregnenolone) was recently approved by the FDA for the treatment of postpartum depression based on long-term antidepressant effects, but how it works is less clear
  .
  

• In mice, isopregnenolone appeared to regulate the coordination
  of neural activity in brain networks involved in mood and emotional processing.
  

• The flow of information through these brain networks is disrupted by chronic stress (a major risk factor for depression and anxiety) but can be partially restored by isoacrylenolone treatment, which provides a possible mechanism
  for the drug's sustained antidepressant effects.