研究發現 懷孕會改變女性大腦構造!

Pregnancy changes a woman's brain, altering the size and structure of areas involved in perceiving the feelings and perspectives of others, according to a first-of-its-kind study published last Monday.
上週一公佈的一項研究顯示，懷孕會改變女性大腦某些部位的大小和結構，這些區域關係到對他人的感受和看法，這是首次進行此類研究。

Most of these changes remained two years after giving birth, at least into the babies' toddler years. And the more pronounced the brain changes, the higher mothers scored on a measure of emotional attachment to their babies.
這些變化中的大多數在寶寶誕生兩年後仍然沒有消退，至少維持到寶寶的學步時期。大腦變化越明顯，母親對寶寶的情緒依戀程度就越高。

"Just fascinating," said Dr. Ronald E. Dahl, director of the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
"真是太奇妙了，"沒有參與這項研究的加利福尼亞大學伯克利分校人類發展研究所院長羅納德·E·達爾博士說。這項研究的論文發表在《自然神經科學》雜誌上。

He said the researchers' interpretation that changes in the brain enhance women's maternal responses is "provocative, and I think it's likely to be true."
達爾表示，研究人員對大腦變化增強女性母性反應的解釋"令人興奮，我認爲可能的確就是這樣"。

In the study, researchers scanned the brains of women who had never conceived before, and again after they gave birth for the first time.
在這項研究中，研究人員掃描了從未懷過孕的女性的大腦，然後在她們第一次生育後再次進行掃描。

The results were remarkable: loss of gray matter in several brain areas involved in a process called social cognition or "theory of mind," the ability to register and consider how other people perceive things.
結果很明顯：有幾個腦部區域中的灰質減少了，這些區域涉及"社會認知"或"心理理論"過程，指的是注意和考慮他人如何感知事物的能力。

It's possibile the loss is "part of the brain's program for dealing with the future," said Paul Thompson, a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California who was not involved in the study.
這種減少可能是"處理未來的大腦程序的一部分，"沒有參與這項研究的南加州大學神經科學家保羅·湯普森說。

The study strongly leans toward this possibility. Hormone surges in pregnancy might cause "pruning or cellular adaptation that is helpful," he said, streamlining certain brain areas to be more efficient at mothering skills "from nurturing to extra vigilance to teaching."
該研究強烈傾向於這種可能性。他說，懷孕期間的激素激增可能會導致一些"有用的削減和細胞適應"，從而簡化腦部的某些區域，提高母親"從提供營養到保持警惕到教育"等各方面的技能。

"We certainly don't want to put a message out there on the lines of 'pregnancy makes you lose your brain,' as we don't believe this is the case," said Elseline Hoekzema, a researcher at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who led the study at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona in Spain.
"我們肯定不想發出'懷孕讓你變傻'這樣的信息，因爲我們不覺得情況是這樣的，"荷蘭萊頓大學的研究員埃爾斯利娜·赫克澤馬說道。她領導了在西班牙巴塞羅那自治大學進行的這項研究。

Pregnancy, she explained, may help a woman's brain specialize in "a mother's ability to recognize the needs of her infant, to recognize social threats or to promote mother-infant bonding."
她解釋說，懷孕有助於女性的大腦專注於培養"一個母親意識到嬰兒的需求，意識到社會威脅，以及拉近母嬰關係的能力"。

The researchers also scanned the brains of 17 men who were not fathers and 19 first-time fathers before and after their partners' pregnancies. The two male groups showed no difference in brain volume.
研究人員也掃描了17名沒有做過父親的男子的大腦，和19位首次爲人父的男子的大腦——在他們的伴侶懷孕前後各掃描了一次。結果顯示，這兩組人的腦容量並無差異。