Matrescence: lifetime impact of motherhood on cognition and the brain

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.

Keywords: aging; cognition; cognitive reserve; matrescence; motherhood; neurodevelopment.

Figure 1,. Key Figure: Reframing Matrescence as a Neurocognitive Developmental Stage in Humans.

The transition to motherhood is associated with hormonal, neural, and cognitive changes both in the short-term (pregnancy and the postpartum period) and in the long-term (mid and late-life). Motherhood is also marked by dynamic and stage-specific exposure to increased environmental complexity. This increased environmental complexity may explain both cognitive challenges in the peripartum period, and cognitive improvements with increased parity in middle and late-life. Neural and cognitive changes across the maternal lifespan also likely interact with the major hormonal events of pregnancy, birth, lactation, perimenopause, and menopause, as well as the simultaneous stages of infant development. The influence of these interacting factors requires further investigation.

Figure 2:. Cognition in the Postpartum Period.

Results from the literature describing cognitive changes and null results in postpartum mothers [, , –, –39, 49, 50, 56, 63, 67, 120]. Direction of Results indicates which group or timepoint showed better performance, for example “Controls>Postpartum” indicates superior performance in the control group, “n.s” indicates non-significance. The significant differences column indicates the cognitive domain(s) which showed significant effects. Significant effects that suggest cognitive improvement in the postpartum period are colored pink, and those that suggest deficits are colored grey. No Significant Differences indicates the cognitive domains which did not show significant effects, shown in blue. Sleep and Mood indicate whether a study has collected (Y) measures of sleep or mood, or not (N).