Fertility makes women smarter

　　This result was published in the latest issue of "Behavior" nerve In the journal Science, researchers believe that a woman's willingness to take care of her children has more to do with her biological Postpartum The result of brain function reconstruction, not just determined by physiological instinct. The 19 women who participated in the study had an average age of 33 and were from Haven, Connecticut, USA. Hospital , all of whom had just given birth less than three or four months ago and were breastfeeding. Half of them had given birth to children before and had no postpartum depression.

　　The researchers used MRI scans of their brains and found small but significant changes in the amount of gray matter in the cerebral cortex, particularly in areas associated with mothering motivation (hypothalamus), reward, emotional processing (substantia nigra and amygdala), sensory integration (parietal lobe), and judgmental reasoning (prefrontal cortex).

　　Under normal circumstances, the gray matter in the adult brain does not change unless there is a major change in the environment, meaningful learning, or brain trauma. However, researchers point out that because of the dramatic changes in hormones (estrogen, oxytocin and prolactin) caused by childbirth, a new mother's brain may be restructured to cope with her baby.

　　At the same time, research has also discovered the positive educational significance of this change. Mothers who are passionate about their children have more obvious changes in gray matter in brain areas related to pregnancy and emotional processing than mothers who are more silent.

　　In fact, this research has given us an important reminder that many innate behaviors of humans have positive significance for the evolution of humans themselves. Giving birth is a painful thing, but for normal people, the great spiritual joy is irreplaceable. At the same time, small life also brings opportunities for self-improvement to new mothers. Positive interaction with children is also an opportunity for you to reshape yourself. If you look at the changes in real life of many women after having children, you may understand more clearly, and this change is based on science.