ReviewNeuroscience and biobehavioral reviews2022
Less can be more: Fine tuning the maternal brain.
Review in Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 44 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
44 citing papers in PubMed, 83 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neural Correlates of Maternal Posttraumatic Stress in the First Postpartum Year: Blunted Salience and Prefrontal Responses to Infant Distress.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2026Article
- Puberty, pregnancy, and menopause show shared and distinct structural changes across the lifespan.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Feto-Maternal Microchimerism and the Brain: Mechanisms, Neurological Implications, and Translational Perspectives.American journal of reproductive immunology (New York, N.Y. : 1989) · 2026Review
- Examining dynamic changes in prefrontal connectivity and internalizing symptoms during the first and third trimesters of pregnancy.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Bonding before birth: Maternal-fetal attachment and maternal cortical connectivity in late pregnancy.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Maternal Neuroplasticity: Understanding Brain Changes with Perinatal Depression and Anxiety in Women.Current psychiatry reports · 2026Review
- Sex-stratified insights into the genetics of brain volumes in late adulthood.Biology of sex differences · 2026Article
- Early Adulthood Signatures of Motherhood in Brain Aging.Human brain mapping · 2026Article
- Maternal experience alters brain-wide representation of infant cries.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Maternal brain alterations based on neurotransmitter and hormone receptor distributions over six months postpartum.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- GABAergic Neuroactive Steroids and Network States: Relevance to Peripartum Depression.Biological psychiatry · 2026Review
- Natural variations in maternal behavior shape anxiety and hippocampal neurogenesis in offspring.Life science alliance · 2026Article
- The effects of a second pregnancy on women's brain structure and function.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Efficacy of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for mild postpartum depression and its association with changes in plasma neuropeptide levels: a prospective, non-randomized controlled study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Reproductive experience influences the effects of Lactocaseibacillus rhamnosus HN001 on gut microbiota and hippocampal plasticity in female rats.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Psilocybin during the postpartum period induces long-lasting adverse effects in both mothers and offspring.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Improving maternal well-being: a matrescence education pilot study for new mothers.Maternal health, neonatology and perinatology · 2025Article
- Event-related potentials and behavioral correlates of emotional recognition memory in late pregnancy.Archives of women's mental health · 2025Article
- Neurosteroids: a lifelong impact on brain health.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Review
- Executive functioning in matrescence and implications for perinatal depression.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
PAWLUSKI, J.L., Hoekzema, E., Leuner, B., and Lonstein, J.S. Less can be more: Fine tuning the maternal brain. NEUROSCI BIOBEHAV REV (129) XXX-XXX, 2022. Plasticity in the female brain across the lifespan has recently become a growing field of scientific inquiry. This has led to the understanding that the transition to motherhood is marked by some of the most significant changes in brain plasticity in the adult female brain. Perhaps unexpectedly, plasticity occurring in the maternal brain often involves a decrease in brain volume, neurogenesis and glial cell density that presumably optimizes caregiving and other postpartum behaviors. This review summarizes what we know of the 'fine-tuning' of the female brain that accompanies motherhood and highlights the implications of these changes for maternal neurobehavioral health. The first part of the review summarizes structural and functional brain changes in humans during pregnancy and postpartum period with the remainder of the review focusing on neural and glial plasticity during the peripartum period in animal models. The aim of this review is to provide a clear understanding of when 'less is more' in maternal brain plasticity and where future research can focus to improve our understanding of the unique brain plasticity occurring during matrescence.
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What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.