Maternal Brain Resting‐State Connectivity in the Postpartum Period

Publication Date

9-2019

Document Type

Article

Organizational Units

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology

Keywords

Brain, Connectivity, Maternal, Postpartum, Resting‐state

Abstract

In the postpartum period, the maternal brain experiences both structural and functional plasticity. Although we have a growing understanding of the responses of the human maternal brain to infant stimuli, little is known about the intrinsic connectivity among those regions during the postpartum months. Resting‐state functional connectivity (rsFC) provides a measure of the functional architecture of the brain based upon intrinsic functional connectivity (ie, the temporal correlation in blood oxygenation level dependent signal when the brain is not engaged in a specific task). In the present study, we used resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine how later postpartum months are associated with rsFC and maternal behaviours. We recruited a sample of 47 socioeconomically diverse first‐time mothers with singleton pregnancies. Because the amygdala has been shown to play a critical role in maternal behaviours in the postpartum period, this was chosen as the seed for a seed‐based correlation analysis. For the left amygdala, later postpartum months were associated with greater connectivity with the anterior cingulate gyrus, left nucleus accumbens, right caudate and left cerebellum (P < 0.05, false discovery rate corrected). Furthermore, in an exploratory analysis, we observed indications that rsFC between the left amygdala and left nucleus accumbens was positively associated with maternal structuring during a mother child‐interaction. In addition, later postpartum months were associated with greater connectivity between the right amygdala and the bilateral caudate and right putamen. Overall, we provide evidence of relationships between postpartum months and rsFC in the regions involved in salience detection and regions involved in maternal motivation. Greater connectivity between the amygdala and nucleus accumbens may play a role in positive maternal behaviours.

Copyright Date

9-2019

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by British Society for Neuroendocrinology. User is responsible for all copyright compliance. This article was originally published as:

Dufford, A. J., Erhart, A., & Kim, P. (2019). Maternal brain resting‐state connectivity in the postpartum period. Journal of Neuroendocrinology, 31(9), E12737. https://doi.org/10.1111/jne.12737

Rights Holder

British Society for Neuroendocrinology

Provenance

Received from CHORUS

Language

English (eng)

Publication Title

Journal of Neuroendocrinology

Volume

31

Issue

9

First Page

e12737

ISSN

1365-2826

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