Before their own central clocks develop, the brains of fetal rats detect their mother’s metabolic cycle to help regulate the expression of certain genes.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s investigation comes after a study showed prenatal exposure to topiramate roughly triples a child’s likelihood of having autism or intellectual disability.
By measuring various pollutants in the immediate vicinity of pregnant women and tracking brain development of their children, researchers in Barcelona aim to untangle any influence the former has on the latter.
Reductions in the volume of gray matter in specific regions appear to represent synaptic pruning, a new study suggests, that tunes a mother’s brain to childcare.
A mom’s stress could lead to changes in her offspring’s brains that can affect the physiology and behavior of the young, researchers report at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting.