Paternina Die, MaríaMartínez-García, MagdalenaMartín de Blas, DanielNoguero, InésServin Barthet, CamilaPretus, ClaraSoler Campillo, AnnaLópez Montoya, GonzaloDesco, ManuelCarmona, Susanna2024-10-302024-10-302024Paternina-Die M, Martínez-García M, Martín de Blas D, Noguero I, Servin-Barthet C, Pretus C, et al. Women's neuroplasticity during gestation, childbirth and postpartum. Nat Neurosci. 2024 Feb;27(2):319-27. DOI: 10.1038/s41593-023-01513-21097-6256http://hdl.handle.net/10230/68395Pregnancy is a unique neuroplastic period in adult life. This longitudinal study tracked brain cortical changes during the peripartum period and explored how the type of childbirth affects these changes. We collected neuroanatomic, obstetric and neuropsychological data from 110 first-time mothers during late pregnancy and early postpartum, as well as from 34 nulliparous women evaluated at similar time points. During late pregnancy, mothers showed lower cortical volume than controls across all functional networks. These cortical differences attenuated in the early postpartum session. Default mode and frontoparietal networks showed below-expected volume increases during peripartum, suggesting that their reductions may persist longer. Results also pointed to different cortical trajectories in mothers who delivered by scheduled C-section. The main findings were replicated in an independent sample of 29 mothers and 24 nulliparous women. These data suggest a dynamic trajectory of cortical decreases during pregnancy that attenuates in the postpartum period, at a different rate depending on the brain network and childbirth type.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41593-023-01513-2Cognitive neuroscienceSocial neuroscienceBraininfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess