TY - JOUR
AU - Ann-Marie G. de Lange
AU - Tobias Kaufmann
AU - Dennis van der Meer
AU - Luigi A. Maglanoc
AU - Dag Alnæs
AU - Torgeir Moberget
AU - Gwenaëlle Douaud
AU - Ole A. Andreassen
AU - Lars T. Westlye
AB - Maternal 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.
BT - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DA - 2019-10-29
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1910666116
IS - 44
N2 - Maternal 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.
PY - 2019
SP - 22341
EP - 22346
T2 - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
TI - Population-based neuroimaging reveals traces of childbirth in the maternal brain
UR - https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1910666116
VL - 116
Y2 - 2026-02-24
ER -