Cortical changes associated with parenthood are present in late life

Abstract

Early parenthood results in changes in cortical thickness in regions related to parental care. However, the enduring effects of this period on the structure of the human brain, and cognition in late-life, is unknown. In an elderly sample, we examined the relationship between the number of children parented (here, 1-6 children) and cortical thickness in 267 males (74.0 ±3.5 years) and 231 females (73.8±3.5 years). We also compared cognition and cortical thickness between parents of one child and non-parents, in n=36 males (73.4±3.7 years), and n=46 females (72.8±3.3 years). We obtained a positive relationship between number of children parented and verbal memory performance, showing increasing memory performance with number of children. For mothers, number of children positively correlated with cortical thickness in the parahippocampal gyrus and negatively correlated with regions of the visual cortex. Mothers of one child showed thinner cortical thickness in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and visual cortex compared with childless women. Fathers of one child showed thinner cortical thickness in the anterior cingulate cortex and thicker cortical thickness in the temporal pole compared with childless men. Our results are the first to reveal distributed differences in cortical thickness related to parenthood that are evident beyond the postpartum period. Our findings overlap substantially with the areas found to be altered across pregnancy and the postpartum period, suggesting that neural changes associated with early parenthood persist into older age, and are potentially cognitively beneficial.