Zeno's Bar & Grill
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Good news for all the moms out there
While I was doing a literature search for my other work—scientific consulting—this recent article by Gatewood et al. from the University of Richmond caught my eye.
Motherhood mitigates aging-related decrements in learning and memory and positively affects brain aging in the rat. Brain Res Bull. 2005 Jul 30;66(2):91-8.
They found that rats who’d had babies could learn spatial tasks (mazes) better than rats who were nulliparous (=no kids). And the rats who’d had more than one pregnancy had significantly reduced markers for neurodegeneration. So, if you are a rat, at least, you’d better move out of Manhattan, get married and start having as many little baby rats as you can!
Now, if all this is really true and has any significance for humans…why is it that I can’t ever remember anything since I’ve had kids?
Melanie
Motherhood mitigates aging-related decrements in learning and memory and positively affects brain aging in the rat. Brain Res Bull. 2005 Jul 30;66(2):91-8.
They found that rats who’d had babies could learn spatial tasks (mazes) better than rats who were nulliparous (=no kids). And the rats who’d had more than one pregnancy had significantly reduced markers for neurodegeneration. So, if you are a rat, at least, you’d better move out of Manhattan, get married and start having as many little baby rats as you can!
Now, if all this is really true and has any significance for humans…why is it that I can’t ever remember anything since I’ve had kids?
Melanie
