Saturday, February 18, 2006

Be Afraid People, Very Afraid - As the World Could Still Be My Bitch

The Toronto Star carries an article about the pitfalls of public transportation while pregnant and the National Post is writing about the declining population and fertility rates in Canada but the Globe and Mail goes for the gold with this article:

Blood tests, laboratory experiments with animals and humans, and magnetic-resonance images of working brains reveal that from pregnancy on, female mammals are brighter, bolder and better able to cope with life than their childless counterparts.

These brain improvements are permanent, lasting from the childbearing years into senescence. Nature automatically turbo-charges the brains of mothers. As all kids know, there's a shorthand name for superhuman: mom.

Mothers don't necessarily outshine non-mothers in every possible way, says Craig Kinsley, a professor of neuroscience at Virginia's University of Richmond, and one of Dr. Lambert's senior collaborators. All the same, the behaviours that do improve are so central that they give a new mom an immense advantage over her childless sister. From curiosity to self-confidence to sensory acuteness, the maternal brain shines in a host of ways.

The triggers for maternal brain enhancement involve the same signalling apparatus that governs the whole cascade of life. Puberty, mating, conception, pregnancy and birth are all controlled by chemical messengers called hormones. Hormones perform a bewildering variety of functions in all mammals, but particularly in females. Estrogens, including a powerful variety called estradiol, are produced in a pregnant woman's ovaries and placenta.

When they travel to the brain, they change it -- a process that until recently was thought to be impossible. Under hormonal direction, brain cells are enlarged in the hypothalamus, a region that strongly affects maternal behaviour. Hormones increase neuronal branches in a nearby brain area called the hippocampus. The hippocampus isn't directly involved in how mothers behave, but it does play a key role in their general learning and memory. From conception onward, both of these key functions are intensified in moms.

Pregnancy hormones also beef up the brain's amygdala and prefrontal cortices. The amygdala, part of an ancient core brain called the limbic system, regulates intense emotions, including maternal love. The prefrontal areas process sensory input, empathy and conscience.

The upshot of pregnancy, Dr. Kinsley says, is a maternal brain changed forever in critical ways -- not just different, but vastly improved. In his group's animal experiments, mother rats proved two times better than virgin rats at finding food in mazes, and up to three times bolder in exploring unknown situations.

And in competitions involving multitasking, mother rats beat the tails off their virgin cousins. In every aspect of evolutionary success -- cognition, exploration, adventurousness, general intelligence -- the moms were tops. Some critics say rats are rats and humans are humans, and never the twain shall meet. Not so, Dr. Kinsley says. All mammals seem to share a common machinery for hormonal brain enhancement. "Mapping the brain circuitry of rats onto that of humans provides strong support for animal models," he says.

Now I have to contemplate if world domination could have been possible if I had had the six children that I wanted instead of the three I had to settle for? I suppose if I got my act together and went in full-tilt boggie I could still manage to push out a few more babies before menopause finally kicks in - menapause comes very late to the women in my family. But then again, one of the most manipulative and difficult personalities I have ever had to deal with was my father’s maternal grandmother. She had 13 pregnancies and only 5 that lived to adulthood. Bring up her name to my mother, and 30 years after my great grandmother's death, my mother still spites bile.

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