It is common that in anticipation of the child women remember the information worse, understand more slowly and become more scattered. We decided to check if this stereotype is confirmed by scientific data.
To describe the mental capabilities of expectant mothers, many names are used - in the range from ironic to cooler: "Mamnesia", "Maternity of the brain", "Pregnant on the whole head", "The child literally eats the neurons of the mother". In specialized forums, you can find more than a dozen stories of women who complain about absent -mindedness, forgetfulness, decrease attention, impossibility concentrate And decide Working affairs as easily as before pregnancy. In the media there is also information that the volume of gray matter in the brain of pregnant women Reduces. In particular, they write about this "Gazeta.ru", "Russian newspaper" And RIA "News".
A study on a change in the volume of gray matter in the brain of pregnant women, which the media refers, really exists. However, far from all publications, journalists correctly conveyed its essence.
In 2016, in the authoritative medical journal Nature Neuroscience, the article “Pregnancy causes long -term changes in the structure of the human brain” was published. Scientists from Spain and the Netherlands were based on a sample of all 25 pregnant women who were conducted by an MRI scanning of the brain during the gestation of the child and over the next two years if they did not become pregnant. The structure of the brain of these 25 women who are preparing to become mothers compared with the structure of the brain of 19 men who are waiting for addition to the family, as well as with the data of the control group - 17 childless men and 20 not planning pregnancy women.
In pregnant women, changes were seen in areas responsible for social interaction and recognition of emotions in the expression, as well as hippocampus - the pair structure of the temporal departments, which is responsible for the transition of short -term memory into long -term, participating in the spatial memory, necessary for orientation and navigation, and in the mechanisms of the formation of emotions. However, the researchers clarified that, despite the quantitative decrease in gray matter, they did not noted reliable qualitative worships. Pregnant women demonstrated the same abilities to memorize as the control group (with some exceptions of verbal memory, that is, memorizing the information read or heard, but the level of differences was insufficient for a statistically reliable result).
Researchers suggested that the reason may consist of synaptic pruning - reducing the number of neurons to increase the overall effectiveness of the neural network (we also experience it in early childhood and adolescence). In other words, the brain gets rid of the least valuable elements, conveying their functions to neighboring to optimize their resources. Sinaptic Pruning can be compared with inventory - the brain determines what it really needs and what can be “disposed of” and use the vacant place in a more useful way.
By calculations others scientists, during pregnancy, brain volume can decrease by 6–7%. At the same time, the experiments showed the reversibility of such changes. In particular, Observations Dr. Pilian Kim from Denver University demonstrated an increase in the volume of gray matter after three to four months after childbirth. Most of the new neurons were formed in the hypothalamus, black substance, tonsil, parietal share and prefrontal bark. These areas Answer For processing information from sensory organs, emotions and pleasure, as well as motivation.
Pregnancy gives the brain and other advantages. So, in 2009 scientists From the University of Bristol, it was found that women in late pregnancy recognize negative emotions (anger, rage, disgust and sadness) by faces, and in 2011 Canadian researchers Noticedthat women in a position are better remembered by faces after a single interaction.
No less interesting results show and Experiments Above animals. So, it was noted that Material rats are more successful than their naive rivals in situations of versatile activity. In the process of searching for goodies, animals had to simultaneously track visual, sound and olfactory signals and simultaneously monitor the behavior of the rivals. In 60% of cases, rats won two or more pregnancy, in 33% of cases, the leaders once gave birth to females, and only 7% of unborn animals managed to find a treat first to find the first.
At the same time Experiments Their species, which are characterized by the active participation of males in the process of education, also included over the animals. In the Brazilian experiment, males of the groups, who are characterized by an active involvement of a partner in the process of caring for newborn, showed the best results in the competitions on orientation in labyrinths and the search for food, if they had already had experience of paternity. In a similar way, California hamsters-fathers exceeded their childless rivals.
Where did the stereotype of the "motherhood of the brain" come from? Scientists suggest that its reasons should be sought not in physiology, but in psychology. In 2014 study American psychologists showed that pregnant women and just gave birth to women cope with a set of tests for verbal and spatial memory, attention, language skills and ability to plan and control as well as non -acquired from the control group, while they themselves evaluate their results unreasonably worse. Their own assessment of their skills was underestimated even after they were familiarized with the results of the tests. “I was amazed to see how firmly in them the thought was rooted in them that their results were not good enough,” - speaks Michael Larson from the research group.
Thus, although scientists have revealed a quantitative decrease in brain volume during pregnancy, they could not reliably associate it with a qualitative deterioration in cognitive abilities. Moreover, numerous experiments show that memory, attention and ability to analytical thinking are often reduced only in the subjective perception of the woman herself, in fact, the “pregnant” brain copes with these tasks no worse than before.
Most of the untruth
Read on the topic:
- Is it true that listening to classical music by a pregnant woman has a positive effect on the fetus?
- Is it true that Soviet athletes were forced to get pregnant in order to bring forms to the competition to the peak?
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