Motherhood alters the brain permanently?

Toronto: Pregnancy and motherhood can permanently alter a woman’s brain and affect how it responds to treatments later in life, scientists say.

The latest findings on hormone therapy and brain function could have implications for the treatment of age- related neurodegenerative disorders in women, researchers said.

“Our most recent research shows that previous motherhood alters cognition and neuroplasticity in response to hormone therapy, demonstrating that motherhood permanently alters the brain,” said Dr Liisa Galea from the University of British Columbia.

A systematic review of the published scientific literature indicates that estradiol- based Hormone therapy ( HT) may have more beneficial effects, while estrone- based HTs may have more detrimental effect on cognition and dementia risk in women. Galea studied how two forms of oestrogen, estradiol and estrone, affect neuroplasticity, which is how neural pathways in the brain change in response to various factors. Her studies focused on a specific brain region, called the hippocampus, which has important roles in memory and spatial ability, such as navigational skills. Both forms of oestrogen increased the production of new cells in a part of the hippocampus called the dentate gyrus in young females. However, only chronic estradiol, but not chronic estrone, significantly increased the survival of these new neurones, and increased the expression of zif 268, a protein involved in neuroplasticity. Chronic estradiol, but not chronic estrone, also improved performance of young female rats in a behavioural test called the water maze. The water maze is a test of memory and orientation in which rats must find a submerged platform in water that they cannot see; they must instead rely on cues located around them to orient themselves and swim to the platform.