01369nas a2200229   4500000000100000008004100001260001500042100002600057700002000083700002400103700002200127700001500149700002100164700002200185700002200207700002000229245008500249856005800334300001600392490000800408520072300416       2019                            d  c2019-10-291 aAnn-Marie G. de Lange1 aTobias Kaufmann1 aDennis van der Meer1 aLuigi A. Maglanoc1 aDag Alnæs1 aTorgeir Moberget1 aGwenaëlle Douaud1 aOle A. Andreassen1 aLars T. Westlye00aPopulation-based neuroimaging reveals traces of childbirth in the maternal brain  uhttps://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1910666116  a22341-223460 v1163 aMaternal brain adaptations have been found across pregnancy and postpartum, but little is known about the long-term effects of parity on the maternal brain. Using neuroimaging and machine learning, we investigated structural brain characteristics in 12,021 middle-aged women from the UK Biobank, demonstrating that parous women showed less evidence of brain aging compared to their nulliparous peers. The relationship between childbirths and a “younger-looking” brain could not be explained by common genetic variation or relevant confounders. Although prospective longitudinal studies are needed, the results suggest that parity may involve neural changes that could influence women’s brain aging later in life.