| dc.description.abstract | Carrying a fetus to term results in physiological, cognitive, and socioemotional changes in pregnant individuals’ bodies. Past non-human animal studies indicate that the maternal brain undergoes structural and functional changes during pregnancy, yet, less is known about changes occurring in the human maternal brain during across the peripartum period. The current proof-of-concept study thus explores structural and functional brain changes during and after pregnancy in a single subject. The participant underwent 9 MRI scans during pregnancy and the postpartum. Morphometric estimates were measured from anatomical images. Functional and structural connectivity were examined using a personalized network assignment scheme to characterize changes in subject-specific network organization. Results indicated decreases in total brain, total gray (including subordinate measures), and total white matter volume estimates across pregnancy, followed by increases in the postpartum period. Ventricular volume increased across pregnancy and decreased in the postpartum period. Analysis of functional connectivity revealed primarily increases in network coherence across pregnancy and the postpartum period, and primarily decreases in network modularity across pregnancy followed by a plateau in the postpartum period. Structural connectivity results indicated that fractional anisotropy values primarily increased across pregnancy and plateaued in the postpartum period, and mean diffusivity tended to decrease across pregnancy and plateaued in the postpartum period. This study provides support for the existence of morphometric and connectivity changes in the peripartum period, and motivates efforts to further expand this important area of research by examining changes in a larger sample and investigating predictors and potential consequences of these changes. | |
