Latest news with #neuroplasticity
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Ketamine may work by 'flattening the brain's hierarchies,' brain scans suggest
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. DENVER—A single dose of ketamine may subtly reshape how different regions of the brain communicate, a new study suggests. The research, presented June 19 at the Psychedelic Science 2025 conference, is one of the first to investigate ketamine's impact on neuroplasticity — the ability to adapt to experiences by forming new connections and pathways — in the brains of living people. The findings have not been peer-reviewed yet. In recent years, clinical trials have demonstrated ketamine's effectiveness in treating depression within a few hours of a single dose. Animal studies suggest that ketamine almost immediately spurs the growth of new dendritic spines — tiny protrusions that form synapses, the connections between brain cells. But it's been hard to pin down how ketamine works in living humans. To answer that question, the researchers scanned the brains of 11 men using multiple techniques and then administered an intravenous dose of ketamine. One group of the people was re-scanned 24 hours after getting the single dose of the drug, and the other group was scanned again seven days later. Related: 1 psychedelic psilocybin dose eases depression for years, study reveals Normally, the brain processes sensory information via lower-level networks and then feeds that "up the chain" to higher-level networks that orchestrate larger brain processes. Higher level networks also send feedback to lower-order networks, but communication between high and low level networks is less than that within specific networks. In the new study, scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures blood flow to different brain regions, to reveal how brain activity changed after treatment. When fMRI activity levels appear synchronized, it can imply the distinct areas are "communicating" with one another. Typically, regions that are part of a network consistently fire together when the brain is performing specific tasks or is in a certain mental state. After the participants took ketamine, however, activity in specific networks seemed to be desynchronized. The researchers also found an increase in communication between a higher-order network, the default mode network (DMN), and lower-order, sensory networks, such as the somatomotor network, which is linked to the perception of the physical self and bodily sensations. This means that brain regions usually involved in basic sensory processing started communicating more directly and extensively with higher-level regions responsible for complex thought and "orchestrating" brain processes. "Usually there is more segregation between these higher order and lower order networks," Claudio Agnorelli, a neuroscientist at the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London, told Live Science. "But after the ketamine, this hierarchy is kind of collapsed." The DMN is responsible for "mental time travel," or planning and daydreaming, rather than staying focused on particular tasks in the present. An overactive DMN has been linked to depression and rumination. The researchers also used positron emission tomography (PET) scans to measure levels of a protein called SV2A, which plays a role in the release of brain signaling molecules. Higher SV2A levels are thought to indicate more connections between brain cells, Agnorelli said. Although the researchers didn't identify a clear trend in global SVA2 levels after ketamine administration, one brain region tied to the DMN did show clear changes: the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). The PCC is part of the DMN, and it seems to orchestrate the flow of information in the brain. After ketamine administration, the PCC played a smaller role in orchestrating communication across the brain, even as synaptic connections increased within the PCC. RELATED STORIES —FDA approves ketamine-like nasal spray for depression — here's everything you need to know —'Hyper-synchronized' brain waves may explain why different psychedelics have similar effects, rat study reveals —How does ketamine work as an antidepressant? It's complicated. The finding of increased synaptic density in the DMN suggests ketamine isn't just creating new synapses — it's fundamentally reorganizing how brain networks communicate, Sam Mandel, CEO and co-founder of Ketamine Clinics Los Angeles, told Live Science in an email. "The 'flattening of cortical hierarchy' could explain why patients often report feeling less trapped in rigid thought patterns after treatment." The authors cautioned that their results are preliminary. The study had just 11 participants, all of whom were men with no underlying conditions, and there was no placebo group for comparison. Moreover, the imaging methods the team used are still being validated as reliable markers of brain changes. The study does, however, help bridge the gap between what is known about ketamine's impact on animals and how it may act in humans, Agnorelli said. "While we've long understood from animal studies that ketamine promotes neuroplasticity, actually visualizing these synaptic changes in living human brains using a PET tracer is a new development," Mandel said.
Forbes
22-05-2025
- Health
- Forbes
AI Anxiety. Are We Witnessing The Decay Of Our Brains?
The digital age promised freedom from tedious tasks, a future where machines would handle the routine, allowing human minds to focus on bigger things. Artificial intelligence, in its growing presence, has delivered on some of that. From crafting eloquent emails to optimizing complex logistics, AI offers immense convenience, a smooth handover of mental effort. Yet, beneath this easy efficiency, a quiet, unsettling worry has begun to stir. Are we, in our quick adoption of artificial cognition, unintentionally seeing our own thinking skills fade? This isn't a sci-fi scenario, but a real question for a generation at a unique point in history. You and I remember a time before ChatGPT, before AI became a constant helper in our intellectual lives. We grew up tackling tough problems, putting information together, and in the process, gradually sharpened our critical thinking skills. We learned to solve challenges with limited digital aid. But for those who were born after the rise of generative AI in November 2022, AI is the norm. This raises important questions about the legacy we are creating for their minds. Neuroscience has long supported the idea that our brains need to be used to stay strong. Our brains aren't fixed; they are active, adaptable structures capable of amazing change, a process known as neuroplasticity. When we do challenging mental tasks – like learning a new language, solving a difficult problem, or even finding our way in an unfamiliar city – our brains build new connections and strengthen existing ones. If we don't give our brains enough mental stimulation, our thinking abilities can decline. Cognitive training studies demonstrate that engaging in mentally demanding activities can improve memory, attention, and problem-solving skills throughout life. On the other hand, environments that lessen the need for active mental engagement can lead to a noticeable drop in brain activity in key areas. If AI consistently gives us answers, solves equations, and even writes our stories, what happens to the brain pathways that once did those jobs? The very convenience AI offers could be stopping our brains from getting the essential "workouts" they need to stay lively and healthy. Beyond the biological, there's a significant mental aspect to our increasing reliance on AI: the possibility of agency decay. Agency refers to our ability to act on our own and make our own choices. It's the feeling of being in control of what we do and what happens as a result, which is a core part of feeling good about ourselves and being effective. Beyond that ability to take action, agency also encompasses the perception of that ability – and the volition to use it. When AI systems increasingly make decisions for us, filter our information, or even create our artistic output, the occasions to activate our agency shrink. Research on learned helplessness, for example, shows how people who feel they have no control over their environment can become less motivated, have trouble thinking, and feel emotional distress. The widespread convenience that comes with AI can accidentally create a similar mental state. If we consistently let AI do the work of problem-solving, careful analysis, or remembering things, we risk losing our perceived ability to do these tasks ourselves. This subtle loss of agency can lead to a growing feeling of powerlessness, a sense that our own mental muscles are wasting away from not being used. This situation is especially important for those of us who grew up before generative AI was everywhere. We are, in essence, the last analog generation. We remember a world where getting information took more effort, where research meant library shelves and putting ideas together, not just typing a question into a chatbot. Young people, growing up with AI as a constant companion, face a distinct form of AI anxiety. Beyond the familiar pressures of social media, they are navigating a rapid shift from a pre-generative AI world to one where tools like ChatGPT are ubiquitous. This transition places them in a particularly sensitive position: while society at large grapples with the swift evolution of AI, adolescents are simultaneously in the crucial period of their brain's development. I've spoken with a number of young people who, without fully articulating it, express a disquieting sensation—as if their minds are shrinking, akin to how someone with Alzheimer's might feel their cognitive abilities fading. Though not a medical diagnosis, this unsettling feeling of outsourcing mental effort is deeply disturbing. It demands our immediate, serious attention, not just for individual well-being, but for the future of human creativity and society's ability to adapt. To stop our cognitive decline and ensure humans can thrive alongside AI, we must rethink our education and societal norms. Part of the answer is in developing double literacy: Human Literacy: This means a complete understanding of ourselves and society. It includes critical thinking, emotional intelligence, ethical reasoning, creativity, and a deep understanding of human relationships and cultural contexts. It's about strengthening the very abilities that make us uniquely human and that AI, in its current form, cannot copy. This involves encouraging deep reading, sustained concentration, and the ability to combine complex information from various sources, rather than relying only on AI summaries. Algorithmic Literacy: This is understanding what AI is, why it works, how it works, and, most importantly, what its limits are. It means grasping the basics of machine learning, recognizing possible biases in algorithms, understanding data privacy issues, and knowing when and how to use AI as a tool, not a crutch. It's about becoming a smart user and a responsible developer of AI. Bringing these two literacies together is not just an academic idea; it's a societal necessity. Education must move away from just memorizing facts to encouraging careful thought, solving complex problems, and developing unique human skills that work with AI, rather than competing against it. We must teach future generations not just how to use AI, but how to think with AI, and perhaps most importantly, how to think independently of AI. The AI race is an invitation to take a step back and face our own humanity. Who are we, without technology? While this revamping of the education curriculum is a task to be tackled at scale, the following five The worry about AI's impact on our brains is a warning, not a final verdict. We have the power to shape our relationship with technology. For individuals, especially those in business who often feel tempted to delegate, the practical advice is this: ANGST: Actively Nurture Growth, Strengthen Thought Analyze Actively: Don't just consume information; dissect it, synthesize it, and form your own conclusions. Before asking AI for a summary, read and put together complex reports or articles yourself. Nurture Natural Thought: Prioritize unassisted brainstorming and problem-solving. Set aside time for pure, unaided idea generation before turning to AI for more options. Work through challenging problems step-by-step using your own reasoning before relying on AI for solutions. Ground Yourself in Focus: Practice deep concentration. Cultivate sustained attention on tasks that need continuous mental effort, resisting the urge to multitask or switch topics often. Strengthen Social Bonds: Engage in rich, complex human interactions. Make face-to-face discussions, active listening, and detailed communication a priority, as these demand empathy and real-time adaptation. Take the Cognitive Lead: Be the primary driver of your mental tasks. Choose to exert mental effort even when AI offers an easier way, purposefully exercising your mental muscles. By purposefully exercising our mental muscles and asserting our human ability to act, we can reduce the risks of AI anxiety and ensure that technology acts as a strong boost to human potential, rather than a quiet cause of mental decline. Our brains are not meant to wither; they are waiting to be challenged, to learn, and to thrive in this new, complex world.
CTV News
21-05-2025
- Health
- CTV News
‘Baby brain' is real. 3 things to know about what's happening to your brain
Pregnancy is one of the three Ps (puberty, pregnancy and perimenopause), a time when a person's brain undergoes physical changes due to hormones. d3sign//File via CNN Newsource Science has pretty well established that the brain isn't static; it changes and adapts throughout our lives in response to life events in a process called neuroplasticity. Researchers are discovering this is especially true of female brains, which get remodeled significantly during the three Ps: puberty (as do the brains of adolescent males), pregnancy and perimenopause. All three transitions are a frequent butt of pop-culture jokes: the sulky, risk-taking teenager who only wants to be with friends; the scattered mom-to-be who leaves her cell phone in the fridge and can't remember where she parked the car; and the hormonal middle-aged woman who can't focus and spontaneously combusts with hot flashes. But far from being laughable, these behavioral stereotypes are the external manifestations of big internal shifts, many of them linked to the effects of fluctuating hormones on the brain. Cognitive neuroscientist Laura Pritschet, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, is fascinated by how female hormones, including estrogen and progesterone, affect the brain's organization and functioning. 'The reason I chose that field is because I was a budding neuroscientist as an undergrad, interested in brain networks and obsessing over how intricate everything was in the brain to simply allow us to have a personality or remember things,' Pritschet told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently, on his podcast Chasing Life. 'At the same time in my personal life, I was surrounded by menopausal women who were talking about their cognitive complaints and their attention issues,' she said. 'I thought we've got to connect these two together and understand this more.' Pritschet even volunteered as a 'guinea pig' during graduate school, having her brain scanned and blood drawn for 30 days, across two complete reproductive cycles (both on and off birth control pills), to begin to answer the question of how the day-to-day fluctuations in hormones relate to the day-to-day changes in the brain. Around this time, other researchers were studying what happens in the brain during pregnancy, Pritschet said, looking at the brain before and after gestation. They found many changes, but because the studies took a snapshot approach, many questions were left unanswered. 'If there's a 3 to 5% decrease in total gray matter volume, when is that occurring (during pregnancy), and how is it occurring?' Pritschet asked. 'We're missing huge gaps in what we call this metamorphosis. 'We know that the 40-week gestational window leads to these body adaptations to support the development of the fetus: We have increased plasma volume, immune function change, metabolic rate, oxygen consumption,' she said. 'What does this trajectory look like over gestation?' To find out, Pritschet and her team tracked the brain changes in one woman, using MRI and blood draws, from pre-conception and fertility treatment throughout her pregnancy to two years postpartum. Their findings were published in the journal Nature Neuroscience in September. 'We saw this reduction in gray matter volume pretty much across the whole brain,' Pritschet explained. 'We saw increased white matter microstructure and ventricle size.' (Quick anatomy lesson: The brain is made up of gray and white matter. Gray matter is where most of the brain's thinking and processing takes place. White matter helps connect the different brain areas, allowing them to communicate with one another.) 'The inflection point was birth,' Pritschet said. 'We saw that those reductions persisted into postpartum, with slight recovery, meaning that certain areas of the brain showed this rise in gray matter volume in early postpartum. Others did not.' Pritschet said this 'choreographed dance between major features of our brain' is in one respect a physical adaptation to the increased blood flow and swelling that comes with pregnancy. Additionally, the changes may also be a preparation for the next stage: parenting. 'It's a fine-tuning of circuits,' she explained. 'We know that pregnancy is the lead-up to this time in your life where there's a lot of behavioral adaptation that has to occur, and new cognitive demands, and a new cognitive load. 'And so the idea here is that there is this pruning or this delicate rewiring to make certain networks or to make communication in the brain more efficient to meet the demands that are going to have to occur,' Pritschet said. This theory is supported by earlier work. 'The first pinnacle papers that came out looking at neuroanatomy in human women from preconception to postpartum found that degree of change in gray matter volume — that sort of reduction — correlated with various … maternal behaviors (such as bonding). Again, that's all correlation,' she said. 'That's an area we need to do a lot more research on, and it needs a lot of context,' she said. 'But you can expect that if there's fine-tuning in these circuits that underlie cognitive or behavioral process, that the more fine-tuning it undergoes, the better performance you're going to have. That's the idea — but it's so much more complicated than that.' What happens to the brain during pregnancy? Pritschet offers these three insights. The only constant is change The body is the outward sign of a lot of inner upheaval. 'Pregnancy is a transformative time in a person's life where the body undergoes rapid physiological adaptations to prepare for motherhood,' Pritschet said via email. 'But pregnancy doesn't just transform the body — it also triggers profound change to the brain and reflects another critical period of brain development.' She called this remodeling an often-overlooked period of brain development that takes place well into a woman's adulthood. How alarmed should women be? Less gray matter may not sound very positive, but it happens for a reason. 'Despite what one might think, these reductions are not a bad thing, and in fact, are to be expected,' Pritschet said, noting that some of the losses are eventually regained. 'This change could indicate a 'fine-tuning' of brain circuits, not unlike what happens to all young adults as they transition through puberty and their brain becomes more specialized.' These changes could also be a response to the high physiological demands of pregnancy itself, she said, 'showcasing just how adaptive the brain can be.' These changes could affect future health and behavior Mapping these changes could open the door to understanding an array of other neurological and behavioral outcomes including postpartum depression, headaches, migraines, epilepsy, stroke and parental behavior. 'The neuroanatomical changes that unfold during (pregnancy) have broad implications for understanding vulnerability to mental health disorders … and individual differences in parental behavior,' said Pritschet. It may even provide critical insight into how the brain changes over a lifespan, she said.
CNN
21-05-2025
- Health
- CNN
3 things to know about brain changes during pregnancy
Editor's note: The podcast Chasing Life With Dr. Sanjay Gupta explores the medical science behind some of life's mysteries big and small. You can listen to episodes here. Science has pretty well established that the brain isn't static; it changes and adapts throughout our lives in response to life events in a process called neuroplasticity. Researchers are discovering this is especially true of female brains, which get remodeled significantly during the three Ps: puberty (as do the brains of adolescent males), pregnancy and perimenopause. All three transitions are a frequent butt of pop-culture jokes: the sulky, risk-taking teenager who only wants to be with friends; the scattered mom-to-be who leaves her cell phone in the fridge and can't remember where she parked the car; and the hormonal middle-aged woman who can't focus and spontaneously combusts with hot flashes. But far from being laughable, these behavioral stereotypes are the external manifestations of big internal shifts, many of them linked to the effects of fluctuating hormones on the brain. Cognitive neuroscientist Laura Pritschet, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, is fascinated by how female hormones, including estrogen and progesterone, affect the brain's organization and functioning. 'The reason I chose that field is because I was a budding neuroscientist as an undergrad, interested in brain networks and obsessing over how intricate everything was in the brain to simply allow us to have a personality or remember things,' Pritschet told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently, on his podcast Chasing Life. 'At the same time in my personal life, I was surrounded by menopausal women who were talking about their cognitive complaints and their attention issues,' she said. 'I thought we've got to connect these two together and understand this more.' Pritschet even volunteered as a 'guinea pig' during graduate school, having her brain scanned and blood drawn for 30 days, across two complete reproductive cycles (both on and off birth control pills), to begin to answer the question of how the day-to-day fluctuations in hormones relate to the day-to-day changes in the brain. Around this time, other researchers were studying what happens in the brain during pregnancy, Pritschet said, looking at the brain before and after gestation. They found many changes, but because the studies took a snapshot approach, many questions were left unanswered. 'If there's a 3 to 5% decrease in total gray matter volume, when is that occurring (during pregnancy), and how is it occurring?' Pritschet asked. 'We're missing huge gaps in what we call this metamorphosis. 'We know that the 40-week gestational window leads to these body adaptations to support the development of the fetus: We have increased plasma volume, immune function change, metabolic rate, oxygen consumption,' she said. 'What does this trajectory look like over gestation?' To find out, Pritschet and her team tracked the brain changes in one woman, using MRI and blood draws, from pre-conception and fertility treatment throughout her pregnancy to two years postpartum. Their findings were published in the journal Nature Neuroscience in September. You can listen to the full episode here. 'We saw this reduction in gray matter volume pretty much across the whole brain,' Pritschet explained. 'We saw increased white matter microstructure and ventricle size.' (Quick anatomy lesson: The brain is made up of gray and white matter. Gray matter is where most of the brain's thinking and processing takes place. White matter helps connect the different brain areas, allowing them to communicate with one another.) 'The inflection point was birth,' Pritschet said. 'We saw that those reductions persisted into postpartum, with slight recovery, meaning that certain areas of the brain showed this rise in gray matter volume in early postpartum. Others did not.' Pritschet said this 'choreographed dance between major features of our brain' is in one respect a physical adaptation to the increased blood flow and swelling that comes with pregnancy. Additionally, the changes may also be a preparation for the next stage: parenting. 'It's a fine-tuning of circuits,' she explained. 'We know that pregnancy is the lead-up to this time in your life where there's a lot of behavioral adaptation that has to occur, and new cognitive demands, and a new cognitive load. 'And so the idea here is that there is this pruning or this delicate rewiring to make certain networks or to make communication in the brain more efficient to meet the demands that are going to have to occur,' Pritschet said. This theory is supported by earlier work. 'The first pinnacle papers that came out looking at neuroanatomy in human women from preconception to postpartum found that degree of change in gray matter volume — that sort of reduction — correlated with various … maternal behaviors (such as bonding). Again, that's all correlation,' she said. 'That's an area we need to do a lot more research on, and it needs a lot of context,' she said. 'But you can expect that if there's fine-tuning in these circuits that underlie cognitive or behavioral process, that the more fine-tuning it undergoes, the better performance you're going to have. That's the idea — but it's so much more complicated than that.' What happens to the brain during pregnancy? Pritschet offers these three insights. The only constant is change The body is the outward sign of a lot of inner upheaval. 'Pregnancy is a transformative time in a person's life where the body undergoes rapid physiological adaptations to prepare for motherhood,' Pritschet said via email. 'But pregnancy doesn't just transform the body — it also triggers profound change to the brain and reflects another critical period of brain development.' She called this remodeling an often-overlooked period of brain development that takes place well into a woman's adulthood. How alarmed should women be? Less gray matter may not sound very positive, but it happens for a reason. 'Despite what one might think, these reductions are not a bad thing, and in fact, are to be expected,' Pritschet said, noting that some of the losses are eventually regained. 'This change could indicate a 'fine-tuning' of brain circuits, not unlike what happens to all young adults as they transition through puberty and their brain becomes more specialized.' These changes could also be a response to the high physiological demands of pregnancy itself, she said, 'showcasing just how adaptive the brain can be.' These changes could affect future health and behavior Mapping these changes could open the door to understanding an array of other neurological and behavioral outcomes including postpartum depression, headaches, migraines, epilepsy, stroke and parental behavior. 'The neuroanatomical changes that unfold during (pregnancy) have broad implications for understanding vulnerability to mental health disorders … and individual differences in parental behavior,' said Pritschet. It may even provide critical insight into how the brain changes over a lifespan, she said. We hope these insights help you better understand the brain changes that occur during pregnancy. Listen to the full episode here. And join us next week for a new episode of the Chasing Life podcast. CNN Audio's Lori Galarreta contributed to this report.
CNN
21-05-2025
- Health
- CNN
3 things to know about brain changes during pregnancy
Maternal health Women's healthFacebookTweetLink Follow Editor's note: The podcast Chasing Life With Dr. Sanjay Gupta explores the medical science behind some of life's mysteries big and small. You can listen to episodes here. Science has pretty well established that the brain isn't static; it changes and adapts throughout our lives in response to life events in a process called neuroplasticity. Researchers are discovering this is especially true of female brains, which get remodeled significantly during the three Ps: puberty (as do the brains of adolescent males), pregnancy and perimenopause. All three transitions are a frequent butt of pop-culture jokes: the sulky, risk-taking teenager who only wants to be with friends; the scattered mom-to-be who leaves her cell phone in the fridge and can't remember where she parked the car; and the hormonal middle-aged woman who can't focus and spontaneously combusts with hot flashes. But far from being laughable, these behavioral stereotypes are the external manifestations of big internal shifts, many of them linked to the effects of fluctuating hormones on the brain. Cognitive neuroscientist Laura Pritschet, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, is fascinated by how female hormones, including estrogen and progesterone, affect the brain's organization and functioning. 'The reason I chose that field is because I was a budding neuroscientist as an undergrad, interested in brain networks and obsessing over how intricate everything was in the brain to simply allow us to have a personality or remember things,' Pritschet told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently, on his podcast Chasing Life. 'At the same time in my personal life, I was surrounded by menopausal women who were talking about their cognitive complaints and their attention issues,' she said. 'I thought we've got to connect these two together and understand this more.' Pritschet even volunteered as a 'guinea pig' during graduate school, having her brain scanned and blood drawn for 30 days, across two complete reproductive cycles (both on and off birth control pills), to begin to answer the question of how the day-to-day fluctuations in hormones relate to the day-to-day changes in the brain. Around this time, other researchers were studying what happens in the brain during pregnancy, Pritschet said, looking at the brain before and after gestation. They found many changes, but because the studies took a snapshot approach, many questions were left unanswered. 'If there's a 3 to 5% decrease in total gray matter volume, when is that occurring (during pregnancy), and how is it occurring?' Pritschet asked. 'We're missing huge gaps in what we call this metamorphosis. 'We know that the 40-week gestational window leads to these body adaptations to support the development of the fetus: We have increased plasma volume, immune function change, metabolic rate, oxygen consumption,' she said. 'What does this trajectory look like over gestation?' To find out, Pritschet and her team tracked the brain changes in one woman, using MRI and blood draws, from pre-conception and fertility treatment throughout her pregnancy to two years postpartum. Their findings were published in the journal Nature Neuroscience in September. You can listen to the full episode here. 'We saw this reduction in gray matter volume pretty much across the whole brain,' Pritschet explained. 'We saw increased white matter microstructure and ventricle size.' (Quick anatomy lesson: The brain is made up of gray and white matter. Gray matter is where most of the brain's thinking and processing takes place. White matter helps connect the different brain areas, allowing them to communicate with one another.) 'The inflection point was birth,' Pritschet said. 'We saw that those reductions persisted into postpartum, with slight recovery, meaning that certain areas of the brain showed this rise in gray matter volume in early postpartum. Others did not.' Pritschet said this 'choreographed dance between major features of our brain' is in one respect a physical adaptation to the increased blood flow and swelling that comes with pregnancy. Additionally, the changes may also be a preparation for the next stage: parenting. 'It's a fine-tuning of circuits,' she explained. 'We know that pregnancy is the lead-up to this time in your life where there's a lot of behavioral adaptation that has to occur, and new cognitive demands, and a new cognitive load. 'And so the idea here is that there is this pruning or this delicate rewiring to make certain networks or to make communication in the brain more efficient to meet the demands that are going to have to occur,' Pritschet said. This theory is supported by earlier work. 'The first pinnacle papers that came out looking at neuroanatomy in human women from preconception to postpartum found that degree of change in gray matter volume — that sort of reduction — correlated with various … maternal behaviors (such as bonding). Again, that's all correlation,' she said. 'That's an area we need to do a lot more research on, and it needs a lot of context,' she said. 'But you can expect that if there's fine-tuning in these circuits that underlie cognitive or behavioral process, that the more fine-tuning it undergoes, the better performance you're going to have. That's the idea — but it's so much more complicated than that.' What happens to the brain during pregnancy? Pritschet offers these three insights. The only constant is change The body is the outward sign of a lot of inner upheaval. 'Pregnancy is a transformative time in a person's life where the body undergoes rapid physiological adaptations to prepare for motherhood,' Pritschet said via email. 'But pregnancy doesn't just transform the body — it also triggers profound change to the brain and reflects another critical period of brain development.' She called this remodeling an often-overlooked period of brain development that takes place well into a woman's adulthood. How alarmed should women be? Less gray matter may not sound very positive, but it happens for a reason. 'Despite what one might think, these reductions are not a bad thing, and in fact, are to be expected,' Pritschet said, noting that some of the losses are eventually regained. 'This change could indicate a 'fine-tuning' of brain circuits, not unlike what happens to all young adults as they transition through puberty and their brain becomes more specialized.' These changes could also be a response to the high physiological demands of pregnancy itself, she said, 'showcasing just how adaptive the brain can be.' These changes could affect future health and behavior Mapping these changes could open the door to understanding an array of other neurological and behavioral outcomes including postpartum depression, headaches, migraines, epilepsy, stroke and parental behavior. 'The neuroanatomical changes that unfold during (pregnancy) have broad implications for understanding vulnerability to mental health disorders … and individual differences in parental behavior,' said Pritschet. It may even provide critical insight into how the brain changes over a lifespan, she said. We hope these insights help you better understand the brain changes that occur during pregnancy. Listen to the full episode here. And join us next week for a new episode of the Chasing Life podcast. CNN Audio's Lori Galarreta contributed to this report.
