The Maternal Brain: An Organ with Peripartal Plasticity

Table 1

Examples of different forms of peripartum-associated neural plasticity in different relevant brain regions of mammals.

Brain region	Alteration	Time of occurrence	Species	Reference
Whole brain	↓Brain size	Pregnancy/Lactation	Human	[60]
	↓Brain weight	Lactation	Rat	[61]
Lateral ventricle	↓Volume	Pregnancy/Lactation	Human	[60]
Pituitary	↑Size	Pregnancy	Human	[62]
	↓Size	Lactation	Human, Rat	[63–68]
Hypothalamus
SON	↑Volume	Lactation	Rat	[71–73]
	↑Axosomatic and axodendritic synapses on OXT neurons	Lactation	Rat	[98]
	↑Number of shared synapses on OXT neurons	Lactation	Rat	[71, 97, 100, 102]
	Altered excitatory and inhibitory input to OXT neurons	Lactation	Rat	[71, 98, 102, 105]
	↓Dendritic length and branching of OXT neurons	Lactation	Rat	[153]
PVN	Glial retraction of OXT neurons and dendrites	Lactation	Rat	[73, 101, 102]
	↑ICD	Lactation	Rat	[74]
Hippocampus	↓Volume	Lactation	Rat	[61]
	↓Cell proliferation	Lactation	Rat, Sheep	[61, 125, 130–132]
	↓Cell survival	Lactation	Rat	[131]
	↓Dendritic length and complexity of CA1/CA3 pyramidal neurons	Pregnancy/Lactation	Rat	[129, 137]
	↑Spines density on CA1 pyramidal neurons	Pregnancy/Lactation	Rat	[131, 140]
SVZ/OB	↑Cell proliferation SVZ	Pregnancy	Mouse	[115, 116]
	↑Number of interneurons OB	Lactation	Mouse	[115]
	↓Cell proliferation SVZ	Pregnancy/Lactation	Rat, Sheep	[117, 125]
	↑Density of presynapses and spine stability	Lactation	Mouse	[139]
mPFC	↑Dendritic length and spine density	Lactation	Rat	[57]

ICD: inner capillary diameter; mPFC: medial prefrontal cortex; OB: olfactory bulb; OXT: oxytocin; PVN: nucleus paraventricularis; SON: nucleus supraopticus; SVZ: subventricular zone.