A new study found that the areas of the brain that process and control emotions increase in size for women suffering from postpartum depression.
Researchers assessed the brain scans of dozens of women in the weeks leading up to and following childbirth. They discovered that two areas of the brain responsible for emotional control and processing grew in size in the participants who developed symptoms of postpartum depression. The results were published March 5 in Science Advances.
The authors of the study found that women experiencing depressive symptoms in the first month after giving birth saw increases in the size of their amygdala. This area of the brain plays a critical role in processing emotions.
The study also noted that women who rated their childbirth experience as difficult or stressful, something commonly tied to postpartum depression, possessed an increased volume of the hippocampus, the region of the brain that assists with emotional regulation.
“This is really the first step in trying to understand how does the brain change in people who have a normal course of pregnancy and then those who experience perinatal depression, and what can we do about it,” said Dr. Sheila Shanmugan, an assistant professor of psychiatry, obstetrics-gynecology and radiology at the University of Pennsylvania, per The New York Times.
“The big takeaways are about how there are these really profound brain changes during pregnancy and how now we’re seeing it in depression circuitry specifically,” explained Dr. Shanmugan, who was not involved in the study.
The findings do not necessarily mean that increased amygdala and hippocampus volume drive depression and stress, only that the characteristics are correlated. Nor does the study shine any light on why some women appear more susceptible to developing these symptoms than others.
“It might be that those persons whose amygdala is more susceptible to change are also at higher risk of suffering postpartum depression,” said the study’s senior author, Susana Carmona, a neuroscientist who leads the Neuromaternal Laboratory at the Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón in Madrid.
“It can also be the other way around … that somehow these depression symptoms produce an increase in the amygdala volume.”