Page 2 - Neural Processing Laboratory News Today

According to a recent study published in Science, pregnancy hormones may play a significant role in promoting parental behavior in mice. The research

<p>Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have shown that pregnancy hormones ‘rewire’ the brain to prepare mice for motherhood.</p> <p>Their findings, published today in <a href="http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi0576"><em>Science</em></a>, show that both oestrogen and progesterone act on a small population of neurons in the brain to switch on parental behaviour even before offspring arrive. These adaptations...

A study finds that, driven by female hormones, mice in the late stages of pregnancy begin to behave more like parents and, if replicated in humans, could mean women start to develop the conditions known as "baby brain" before, rather than after, giving birth.

"Intriguingly, these changes are long-lasting, and pregnancy seems to permanently remodel the brain," Johannes Kohl told Newsweek.

Hormones 'rewire' the female brain during pregnancy to prepare for motherhood and could explain what is often referred to as 'baby brain'.

Research on mice found that while some hormonal changes lasted for a month after birth, some were permanent.