How pregnancy changes the brain, according to new research [Video]

Researchers have created one of the first comprehensive maps of how the brain changes throughout pregnancy, substantially improving upon understanding of an understudied field.Certain brain regions may shrink in size during pregnancy yet improve in connectivity, “with only a few regions of the brain remaining untouched by the transition to motherhood,” according to the study published Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.The findings are based on one healthy 38-year-old woman the authors studied from three weeks before conception to two years after her child’s birth. Dr. Elizabeth R. Chrastil, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, underwent in vitro fertilization. Chrastil conceived the project and wished to use herself as the participant, as has been done in previous research.There has been “so much about the neurobiology of pregnancy that we don’t understand yet,” said senior study author Dr. Emily Jacobs, associate professor in the department of psychological and …