Can Brain Activity Predict Postpartum Depression?

Approximately 80% of women experience "baby blues" after giving birth, which is a brief period of feeling down. However, about one in seven women experience postpartum depression, a more serious form of sadness that can affect their relationship with their child and have lasting effects. After childbirth, women may struggle to control their negative emotions. A team of European researchers has found that in healthy pregnant women, activity in a specific region deep in the brain is linked to the regulation of negative emotions and the likelihood of developing symptoms of depression.

The study aims to identify pregnant women who are at higher risk of postpartum depression by examining this brain activity and assessing how they manage their emotions (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Neural emotion regulation during pregnancy - a fMRI study investigating a transdiagnostic mental health factor in healthy first-time pregnant women

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This study is the first to compare the brain activity of pregnant women with that of non-pregnant women. The ability to regulate emotions is crucial for mental well-being, and this connection is the focus of our research.

The researchers took 15 healthy pregnant women with very high estrogen levels (due to the pregnancy). The pregnant women were between 5 and 6 months into their first pregnancy. These women were compared with 32 non-pregnant women, who had naturally fluctuating estrogen levels, as occurs during the menstrual cycle.

Each woman was put in an MRI scanner and shown upsetting/disturbing pictures. They were then asked to regulate their emotional state using cognitive reappraisal, which is a technique where the person aims to modify their emotional state by changing their thoughts and trying to reinterpret the situation.

Amygdala Activity and Effect on Emotional Control in Pregnant Women

Franziska Weinmar added: We questioned all the women in the study on how they dealt with negative emotions and found that the pregnant women in our study reported that they seldom tried to change their emotional perspective by using cognitive reappraisal, in contrast to the non-pregnant women.

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However, when asked to regulate their emotions while undergoing an MRI scan, they were just as successful at managing their emotional state as the non-pregnant women.

Both pregnant and non-pregnant women are equally capable of managing emotions by deliberately trying to reinterpret a situation, but for pregnant women, it seems to be more difficult to take this step towards consciously controlling these negative emotions, although they may deal with them in other ways.

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We found that in the MRI scans, pregnant women who showed more activity in the amygdala* while regulating their emotions were less successful in controlling emotions. In addition, pregnant women with this greater activity in the amygdala reported more symptoms of depression.

[The amygdala is a small almond-shaped brain region near the base of the brain, which deals with learning, memory and emotions and is also thought to be involved in maternal behaviour and caregiving.]

Role of Brain Activity in Postpartum Mental Health

We need to be cautious in interpreting this - this is a small sample, and we are the first to undertake this work. However, if larger studies confirm higher activity in the amygdala in women at risk of postpartum depression, we could assess and specifically target these women during this vulnerable phase - for example, by training them in emotion regulation skills. This may be one approach to cope with the baby blues.

Commenting, Dr Susana Carmona (Gregorio Marañón Hospital, Madrid) said

Studies like this are essential for understanding one of the most extreme physiological processes a human can experience: gestation. It’s astonishing how little we still know. Recently, the FDA approved the first treatment for postpartum depression.

However, we still have a long way to go in characterizing what happens in the brain during pregnancy, identifying biomarkers that can indicate the risk of developing perinatal mental disorders, and designing strategies to prevent mother and infant suffering during the delicate and critical peripartum period.

Reference:

1. Neural emotion regulation during pregnancy – a fMRI study investigating a transdiagnostic mental health factor in healthy first-time pregnant women- (https:www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.09.13.24313410v1)

Source-Eurekalert