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Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

bbc.com

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Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#121

Post by mistermann »

dsacco wrote: post #114
mistermann wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, what is the purpose of offering your anecdotal experience if you acknowledge that it is an n=1 datapoint? I'm not sure I understand your question...the grandparent of my comment noted an aspect of the article, someone replied to that casting doubt, and I replied (that fwiw) I had observed similar behavior. Historically one couldn't draw conclusions without an exhaustive study, does that now also apply to…

> Historically one couldn't draw conclusions without an exhaustive study, does that now also apply to anecdotes on forums? I've read hundreds of anecdotes on HN so far this morning, are all of those inappropriate? In a word, yes. I'd push back on the word "inappropriate" specifically though. Whether they are inappropriate is a matter of context; in the context of a discussion about a study published in Nature Neurosc…

Ah ok, I see where you're coming from now. It is a valid point, but then at the same time I'm a stickler for suppression of free speech, so some sort of a meta-discussion was inevitable wasn't it! :)

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#122

Post by kaitai »

dsacco wrote: post #103
kaitai wrote: post #96

It's unfortunate that the link that made the front page here is to the BBC article rather than the NYTimes article [1] on the same study, as the NYTimes article much more clearly addresses a number of the points brought up by commenters here today. The NYTimes article briefly mentions other non-pregnancy related studies on the "pruning" of grey matter. One place to get a bunch of citations for studies on synaptic pru…

Thanks for making this point, especially with regards to pregnancy being a loaded discussion topic. In the original study I found it very interesting that the authors drew parallels between the "maturation" of a new mother's brain (grey matter reductions) and the brains of adolescents undergoing pregnancy. If this study replicates, I would love to see followup studies exploring measures of narcissism, time management…

Fertile ground... :) Moving on, agreed on follow-up studies. A study similar to this one looking at adolescent moms, non-moms, dads, and non-dads would be very interesting as well. After all, if a teen guy is undergoing similar pruning, what does that mean for his experience of a partner's pregnancy? Disentangling social factors from neuroanatomical changes in teen parents would be very hard, though, in societies where teen pregnancy is unusual and has big economic impacts. Might be easier to do someplace where it's more usual.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#123

Post by [deleted] »

6DM wrote: post #5

I never thought a reduction could result in an improvement. The brain is so fascinating! "The researchers found "substantial" reductions in the volume of grey matter in the brains of first-time mothers. The grey matter changes occurred in areas of the brain involved in social interactions used for attributing thoughts and feelings to other people - known as "theory-of-mind" tasks. The researchers thought this would g…

[deleted]

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#125

Post by rimantas »

pc86 wrote: post #20
mibbiting wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Otherwise we'll be called sexist?

Otherwise we'll project unrelated biases under the guise of science. Otherwise we risk unconsciously ignoring or lessening the relevance of facts that contradict those biases. There's nothing sexist about studying the differences between male and female and learning about the biological/physiological strength and weaknesses of each. But there's little scientific justification in extrapolating that to unrelated conclu…

This goes both ways.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#126

Post by ashark »

quickben wrote: post #60
radicalbyte wrote: post #55

Anecdotally I can say it has a large effect on the male brain too. The lack of sleep and time changes you. You get ruthless against time stealers and start seeing 6 hours as a nice long sleep. Full disclosure : I've had about 8hr sleep in 3 days,two sick kids...

Yep, 5 month old here, teething. Short term memory is impacted.

Former coworker of mine figured poor memory formation during those early months is the only reason anyone has more than one kid.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#128

Post by Jemmeh »

radicalbyte wrote: post #55

Anecdotally I can say it has a large effect on the male brain too. The lack of sleep and time changes you. You get ruthless against time stealers and start seeing 6 hours as a nice long sleep. Full disclosure : I've had about 8hr sleep in 3 days,two sick kids...

Women would of course also suffer from the lack of sleep, so I don't understand your point.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#129

Post by Jill_the_Pill »

johnlbevan2 wrote: post #15
caminante wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, I don't think it seems consistent. The author says that the reduction would make mom's MORE aware of social threats. What am I missing?

By being less able to read into the multiple possible reactions of a person; e.g. - "they're looking at my baby because she's cute" - "they're looking at my baby because they want to kill him" - "they're looking at my baby to feign interest in my life" ...the mothers are able to focus on the important options: - "they're probably a threat" - "they're probably not a threat"

This is a good description. When I came home with my firstborn years ago, my once-beloved cats suddenly looked like malicious, germy predators.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#130

Post by Jill_the_Pill »

kaybe wrote: post #49
ingamx77 wrote: post #26

I had the baby while at university, and it's true. While I was always brilliant in math and physics, I couldn't do simple things anymore. That was very frustrating. Thanks god the physics professor was very forgiving as he noticed the change

Did it revert, and after what time if yes?

For me, yes, but it took YEARS.

My kids are now teenagers, and I feel sharper than ever, but those baby years were a blur.

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