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Being pregnant can change your brain matter. So what does that mean for

cognitive function? You know we've had millions of years of evolution and this is

probably adaptive in some way but we don't necessarily know what way that is This is a

a probably adaptive in some way, but we don't necessarily know what way that is adaptive.

It's Wednesday, October 23rd, and you're listening to Science Friday.

I'm Cyfright producer D. Peter Schmidt.

Pregnancy is a hugely transformative experience,

but there's a big part of those bodily changes that is historically understudied,

and that's what happens in the brain. There's new research

that shows distinctive changes in both gray matter and white matter in the brain over the

course of pregnancy, but there's still lots of questions that remain to be answered.

Here's Cyfrise Kathleen Davis with more.

Here with me to explain these changes and what they might mean is my guest.

Dr. Liz Krasdalel, Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of

California Irvine. Welcome to Science Friday. Thanks for having me, Kathleen. So this research, it's my understanding,

is very near and dear to your heart

because it wasn't just any pregnant brain

that was being studied.

It was yours, right?

Right, I was studying my own brain. So I was working with Emily

Jacobs, my collaborator and her student Laura Pritchard, who had just finished a

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