important for social processing and
emotion regulation. This may shed
some light on the transition women go
through in order to adapt and prepare
themselves for looking after a baby.
While women often report a subjective
decline in certain cognitive functions
such as memory deficits or decreased
processing speed, evolutionarily this
may actually support a theory of a
reallocation of cognitive resources fo-
cusing on upcoming demands of pro-
tecting and caring for a baby [7].
Female sex hormones such as estra-
diol or progesterone play a crucial role
during this process with an enormous
increase up to 100 fold in late preg-
nancy. This change in hormonal con-
centrations influences women not only
physically but also in their perception
of the world around them. Accordingly,
estradiol seems to influence emotion
processing leading to an increase of
the accuracy to encode emotional ex-
pressions signaling threat or harm [8].
Therefore in this subproject we will
investigate the neural underpinnings
of emotion regulation in pregnant and
non-pregnant women and will further
investigate the pregnant women 18
months after giving birth. Thereby we
will be able to examine the impact of
pregnancy compared to motherhood
on emotion regulation success.
Preventing stress in pregnancy – the
relaxed fetus
The hormone cortisoI, known as the
‘stress hormone’ is one major fac-
tor for stress regulation. Additionally
in pregnancy, the mother has to deal
with many changes and concerns
about the fetus. This way an increased
cortisol level can lead to metabolic or
psychological changes in the mother.
Therefore, it is important to prevent
Copyrights of image in this figure by International Affective Picture System (IAPS)
stress and to improve the mothers’
well-being during pregnancy. Re-
garding fetal development, the factor
‘stress’ in pregnancy may lead to the
overall question, if stress or relaxation
in pregnancy has any impact on the fe-
tal nervous system. Over the last dec-
ades there is growing evidence that
increased maternal stress levels lead
to an adverse effect on the physiologi-
cal, metabolic and neuronal develop-
ment of the fetus during gestation
with possible long-lasting effects.
At the University of Tübingen we have
the unique and rare possibility of
measuring fetal brain and heart activ-
ity with fetal magnetencephalography
(fMEG). Fetal Magnetoencephalogra-
phy allows the recording of event-re-
lated responses (ER) to auditory [10]
and visual stimuli [11] in fetuses. The
latency of the ERs is an indicator for
neurological development [12]. This
measurement method allows insights
into fetal brain development and helps
to add knowledge about fetal develop-
ment. To investigate the role of relaxa-
tion on fetal activity, we will measure
fetal development between 29 weeks
of gestation and birth. Changes in
heart activity and brain signals will be
investigated under induced maternal
relaxation.
Copyright: University Hospital Tübingen, Germany
10 | NEUROMAG | July 2018
Pregnancy and psychiatric comor-
bidity – Prediction of maternal men-
tal health.
From an obstetric point of view, men-
tal health problems, together with
obesity, are the two most common
health problems encountered in preg-
nant women. They are stressors for
the women and even for the fetus.
Clearly, psychiatric hospitalizations,
post-partum depression or psycho-
ses, self-harm or suicides, child ne-
glect, abuse, and even infanticide
during or shortly after pregnancy all
represent severe adverse outcomes
of psychiatric comorbidity, where the
health care system has a responsibil-
ity to minimize the burden of adversity
by early identification and adequate
treatment of pregnant women with
mental disorders. As mentioned be-
fore, there are several biological (e.g.,
hormones,
immune/inflammatory,
genetic) and psychosocial (e.g., stress,
support) risk factors, however, up
to now, rarely have neuronal, physi-
ological and psychosocial factors been
combined and consequently tested
about their prediction value regarding
maternal mental health. Therefore, we
are particularly interested in whether
resting-state functional connectivity
in concert with other factors may con-