Poster No:
1271
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Negin Daneshnia1, Natalia Chechko1, Susanne Nehls1
Institutions:
1RWTH University Hospital Aachen, Aachen, Germany
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
During the last two decades a global shift in fatherhood has been observed, including factors such as paid paternal leave and increased involvement in child-care (McGill, 2014). Along with that, a growing scientific interest in the neurobiological underpinnings of fatherhood can be noted. While our preliminary findings hint at paternal brain neuroplasticity, with dynamic structural changes during the first 12 weeks postpartum, others hint at paternal-specific networks involved in aspects such as infant cry perception (Witteman et al., 2019). Nonetheless, findings are sparse and inconsistent. Based on that, the present longitudinal study investigated functional connectivity in the paternal brain during a 6-month postpartum period.
Methods:
We examined paternal (N=23) brain function within the first week of childbirth, as well as after 3, 6, 9, 12 and 24 weeks postpartum. The subjects (mean age = 32.46, SD= 7.85) were healthy and the biological fathers of healthy infants who had been born at the University Hospital Aachen. Resting state fMRI images were obtained during every of the six sessions and data was analyzed using the CONN toolbox (Nieto-Castanon, 2020). Seed-based connectivity (SBC) and whole-brain ROI-to-ROI analysis were conducted to examine functional connectivity (FC) changes over the period of 24 weeks postpartum. For the SBC analysis, connectivity strength (z) across a-priori-defined regions of the default mode network (DMN) (the MPFC, the PCC, the left and right lateral parietal cortices) was calculated. Statistical thresholds were set for both analyses, with cluster threshold p < .05 (FDR corrected); voxel threshold p < .001 (p-uncorrected), and connection threshold p < .05 (p- uncorrected); cluster threshold p < .05 (p-uncorrected) for the SBC and ROI-to-ROI analysis respectively.
Results:
SBC analysis displayed significant connectivity patterns between the DMN to other brain areas throughout the postpartum period. More specifically, enhanced connectivity was observed as soon as 3 weeks postpartum, persisting through week 6. These associations encompassed regions in the bilateral cerebellum and frontal lobules, as well as the right thalamus and the middle and superior temporal gyri. Notably, connectivity changes appeared to fade in weeks 9 and 12 postpartum, with FC observed only in the left postcentral gyrus. In contrast, at 24 weeks postpartum, connectivity associations were revealed in bilateral temporal areas, particularly in Heschl's and temporal gyri, as well as in the left cerebellum, the angular gyrus, the insula and right thalamus. Additional whole-brain ROI-to-ROI analysis was conducted, comparing 1 week to 24 weeks postpartum, to identify possible connections outside the DMN. The cluster of FCs included, inter alia, parts of the mesolimbic pathway (e.g. the right accumbens, left amygdala), the central executive network (CEN) (e.g. the left middle frontal gyrus) and the salience network (SN) (e.g. the bilateral rostral prefrontal cortex).
Conclusions:
The observed results hint at significant functional connectivity in men shortly after childbirth and up to 24 weeks postpartum, supporting the notion of a paternal brain that appears to adapt to the demands of fatherhood. That is particularly emphasized by the rapid onset of connectivity associations observed as early as 3 weeks postpartum, including regions that have previously been reported as emerging paternal brain areas (Feldman et al., 2019). More precisely, we found support for connectivity changes in mentalizing networks (e.g. angular gyrus), emotion regulation networks (e.g., frontal gyri, insula) and the subcortical parenting network (e.g., putamen, pallidum, thalamus, amygdala). When considering the emerging connectivity between the core networks CEN, SN and DMN, the postpartum paternal brain appears to modify critical networks that may facilitate the transition to parenthood.
Lifespan Development:
Lifespan Development Other 1
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Connectivity (eg. functional, effective, structural) 2
Keywords:
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Other - paternal brain, functional connectivity, postpartum
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
Feldman R., Braun K., Champagne F.A. (2019) The neural mechanisms and consequences of paternal caregiving. Nat. Rev. Neurosci.;20:205–224. doi: 10.1038/s41583-019-0124-6.
McGill B.S. (2014) Navigating New Norms of Involved Fatherhood. J. Fam. Issues; 35:1089–1106. doi: 10.1177/0192513X14522247.
Nieto-Castanon, A. (2020). FMRI minimal preprocessing pipeline. In Handbook of functional connectivity Magnetic Resonance Imaging methods in CONN (pp. 3-16). Hilbert Press.
Witteman J., Van IJzendoorn M.H., Rilling J.K., Bos P.A., Schiller N.O., Bakermans-Kranenburg M.J. (2019) Towards a neural model of infant cry perception. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev.;99:23–32. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.01.026.