ReviewTrends in cognitive sciences2023
Matrescence: lifetime impact of motherhood on cognition and the brain.
Review in Trends in cognitive sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 54 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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
54 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Neural correlates of peripartum depression: a systematic review, meta-analysis and comparison to major depressive disorder.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Maternal postnatal depression and sensitive parenting: Considering developmental timing with a causally informative approach.Developmental psychology · 2026Article
- Distal pup cues attenuate defensive reactivity and fear-potentiated startle magnitude in postpartum rats without altering sensorimotor gating.Behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Beyond 'Baby Brain': Memory and Sleep Health During Pregnancy-A Biopsychosocial Perspective.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Postpartum maternal bonding problems relate to aberrant neural processing of infant emotions: Results of an adapted fMRI emotional GoNoGo task.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Article
- Maternal brain alterations based on neurotransmitter and hormone receptor distributions over six months postpartum.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Factors affecting loneliness in pregnant women: A scoping review.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2026Article
- Tracing the developmental arc of matrescence: a phenomenological study of urban Indian mothers.BMC women's health · 2026Article
- Emotional-cognitive differences during pregnancy: Adaptations for motherhood.Infant mental health journal · 2026Article
- Linking social attention to reproductive state and future reproduction in female monkeys.Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2026Article
- From reference epigenomes to response epigenomes: a public-health case built on the developing brain.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- "Motherhood is a work in progress": a qualitative longitudinal study of maternal subjectivity and well-being of women in the Bukhali trial in Soweto, South Africa.Frontiers in global women's health · 2026Article
- Pregnancy and breastfeeding are associated with less later-life cognitive decline in a longitudinal, prospective cohort.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Article
- Report: Workshop on maternal mental health, February 11-12, 2024, cosponsored by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.Pregnancy (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2025Article
- Postnatal experiences of women with cardiac conditions: a systematic review and meta-synthesis.AJOG global reports · 2025Review
- Maternal Satisfaction with Perinatal Care and Breastfeeding at 6 Months Postpartum.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Mental wellbeing during pregnancy and the transition to motherhood: an explorative study through the lens of healthcare professionals.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Article
- Benchmarking AI Chatbots for Maternal Lactation Support: A Cross-Platform Evaluation of Quality, Readability, and Clinical Accuracy.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Postpartum depression and the moderating role of empathy on child physiological reactivity.Italian journal of pediatrics · 2025Observational
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Profound environmental, hormonal, and neurobiological changes mark the transition to motherhood as a major biosocial life event. Despite the ubiquity of motherhood, the enduring impact of caregiving on cognition and the brain across the lifespan is not well characterized and represents a unique window of opportunity to investigate human neural and cognitive development. By integrating insights from the human and animal maternal brain literatures with theories of cognitive ageing, we outline a framework for understanding maternal neural and cognitive changes across the lifespan. We suggest that the increased cognitive load of motherhood provides an initial challenge during the peripartum period, requiring continuous adaptation; yet when these demands are sustained across the lifespan, they result in increased late-life cognitive reserve.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.