A study of a woman’s brain before, during and after pregnancy revealed sweeping neural changes, some of which stuck around months after her baby was born | Grey matter shrunk in some areas by about 4 percent of its starting bulk, and some information-carrying tracts grew stronger, researchers report

>The particular brain under scrutiny belongs to cognitive neuroscientist Liz Chrastil, one of the researchers working on the project. She was planning to undergo in vitro fertilization as she and her colleagues began thinking about studying the brain throughout pregnancy.

>Over the course of her pregnancy and afterward, Chrastil says she felt fine as her gray matter was reduced and refined, as the researchers expected. But another change to her brain surprised them all. Some of her brain’s white matter tracts grew stronger, peaking in the second trimester. 

Read more about[ the study here](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/pregnancy-brain-overhauls-mother) & the dataset in [Nature Neuroscience here. ](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-024-01741-0)