Being pregnant might mean you’ll have more trouble finding our car keys for the rest of your life.
A pregnant female neurologist knew what being pregnant does to her body, but not so much her brain. So, she scanned her noggin 26 times with an MRI, throughout her pregnancy, to see how her brain changed.
She found that it made memory processing worse. The grey matter in her head, which handles memory, permanently shrunk by 4%. Although, she did say she didn’t notice a change in how she thinks. Then again, if her memory was affected, how would she know?
The good news is that white brain matter increased. That’s the part that enables the transfer of information quickly and make big connections. Again, though, she said she didn’t notice changes.
A more extensive study with more scans is being planned. I’d would love to see if they can specifically scan the part that affects food cravings. I want to know why pickles suddenly become so important.