Mothers and fathers with young children often experience mental fog from sleep deprivation, loneliness, heavy mental load, difficult work-life balance, and stress. These apparent deficits related to health and quality of life do not appear to harm long-term brain function. Mothers and fathers show patterns of brain connectivity that do not exhibit typical age-related declines. Greater connectivity is evident in key sensory and motor networks that normally reduce connectivity with age. The effect appears cumulative: more children associate with stronger neural connections. Parenting may act as environmental enrichment through increased physical activity, social interaction, and cognitive stimulation.
Many mothers and fathers with young children in their care sometimes feel as though they are experiencing parenthood in a mental fog, with their brains struggling to cope with lack of sleep, loneliness, mental load, the impossible work-life balance, and the stress that comes with it all. Some even wonder whether all that lost sleep, all that burden, and all that stress might have consequences in the future whether it might make them more vulnerable, for example, to developing certain neurodegenerative diseases.
According to the PNAS study Protective role of parenthood on age-related brain function in mid- to late-life, published last February, mothers and fathers show patterns of brain connectivity that do not exhibit the typical age-related changes. Specifically, through the analysis of brain scans and family information from the U.K. Biobank, the researchers conclude that mothers and fathers display greater connectivity in key sensory and motor brain networks, which are typically known to show reduced connectivity as people age.
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