怀孕会让人大脑缩水?一孕傻三年!
Women who are pregnant often report feeling a little fuzzy, a little dim and more forgetful than usual, but medical research has produced mixed data to support the so-called “baby brain” phenomenon. Now a study that used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) confirms that mothers lose brain volume when they’re pregnant, adding to the debate. The authors of the new study, which was published in Nature Neuroscience, suspect the reductions they’ve detected may be a side-effect of “synaptic pruning,” which also happens to humans at age three and again during adolescence. In pregnant women, they speculate, the gray matter shrinkage may function as a similar kind of decluttering, but one that would optimize a woman’s ability to sense what’s going on for other people, what their moods are, and when the emotional weather is shifting. This change would benefit a woman on the cusp of becoming a mother, as it would allow her to better anticipate and understand her baby’s needs. The authors say that shrinking plays out different in rodents. A mother’s brain changes in ways that tweak her ability to forage and hunt for food. “Sometimes less is more. Loss of volume does not necessarily translate to loss of function.” Previous studies have suggested that pregnant women are better able to understand emotions encoded in faces, especially during late-stage pregnancy, while other scientists believe pregnancy turns women into better organizers. The potential upsides to “baby brain” keep adding up. |