Researchers from Australia, Singapore, and the United States, led by Helena J.V. Rutherford of Yale University, analyzed MRI data from UK Biobank participants: 19,964 women and 17,607 men (average age 55). They found that the number of children a participant had was positively associated with functional connectivity of brain structures, particularly in the somatosensory and motor cortex. The study results were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The results were similar for both women and men, suggesting that the positive effect is driven not by pregnancy and childbirth, but by childcare. Furthermore, the number of children was inversely correlated with age-related changes in functional brain connectivity, leading the scientists to believe that parenthood may have a neuroprotective effect.
