Mommy Brain Revisited

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr. Robert Froemke, Professor, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and Skirball Professor of Genetics, Department of Neuroscience and Physiology at New York University. We talk about oxytocin neurons, learning to parent and alloparenting. We also talk about the importance of experience with offspring, making mistakes, and ‘mouse m...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Valerie Miller, a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Purdue University. We talk about her recent research on ‘Mommy Brain’ in the USA and the importance of studying how moms feel and the cultural factors that can influence mommy brain and motherhood.  You won't want to miss this episode!   Download the publication here: https://anthrosource.on...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr. Elseline Hoekzema, Assistant Professor, Adult Psychiatry and Amsterdam Neuroscience at Amsterdam University Medical Centers. We talk about her recent research published Nature Communications on how pregnancy impacts brain structure and function. This is a fascinating area of research! Download the publication here: https://www.nature.com/art...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I read our viewpoint in JAMA Neurology titled "It's time to rebrand 'Mommy Brain'" published Feb 6, 2023 and authored by Dr Clare McCormack, Dr Bridget Callaghan and myself.  We also talk about how we are rebranding 'Mommy Brain'.  For the print version of the viewpoint see:  https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/article-abstract/280...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr Margaret Bublitz, a Clinical Psychologist and an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, and Medicine, in the Department of Psychiatry, at the Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University.  We talk about her research on how child maltreatment early in life can modify the maternal brain in human mothers. We also talk about...

On this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited talk with Emma Jane Unsworth, British writer and bestselling author. We talk about her memoir After the Storm: Postnatal Depression and the Utter Weirdness of New Motherhood and what she did to prepare for her second pregnancy and postpartum experience.  This podcast episode is part of a collaboration with InSPIre the Mind – a digital magazine – where...

On this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Prof Carmine Pariante, a psychiatrist and professor at King's College London. This episode is part of a collaboration with InSPIre the Mind – a digital magazine – where we are doing a series of blogs on maternal mental illness. Over the next month check out stories from the series at : https://www.inspirethemind.org/our-series In this episode we...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr. Amanda Kentner a Full Professor at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in the USA. We talk about her recent research published at eNeuro on the important role that enrichment can play in parenting and development. Don’t miss this episode on cutting edge research in behavioral neuroscience. So interesting! Download the publi...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr. Bridget Callaghan, an Assistant Professor at UCLA, about recent research she’s done on memory during pregnancy. Love this research! We talk about “baby brain”, hippocampal-dependent memory changes during pregnancy – what the data shows, how we need to think about memory and motherhood, and where research needs to go to understand memory chan...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr. Ruth Feldman, the Simms-Mann Professor of Developmental Social Neuroscience at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzlia with joint appointment at Yale Child Study Center. We talk about her recent research on neural synchrony and how maternal cues can aid in neural synchrony between strangers and infants. We also talk about the importance o...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr. James Rilling a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University in the USA. We talk about his research on brain changes in human fathers. So cool! We also talk the interplay between oxytocin, testosterone, dad brain changes as well as tradeoffs between parenting and mat...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr. Siobhain O’Mahony a Senior Lecturer at University College Cork, Ireland. We talk about the the Brain-Gut axis (or axes) and the role of the gut microbiome in pregnancy and postpartum. We also talk about the role that stress can play on this system. She updates us on how birth mode may affect the developing microbiome in infants - something t...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr. Ann-Marie de Lange a Maitre-Assistant Ambizione FNS (Assistant Professor) at the Centre for Research in Neuroscience, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, l'Universite de Lausanne, Switzerland. We talk about her research on motherhood and brain-aging in middle aged women. We also talk about the importance of understanding the female brain t...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr. Kimberly D'Anna-Hernandez an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Marquette University in the USA. We talk about her research on sociocultural stressors and maternal mental health in Latinx populations in the US. We talk about the impact of systemic racism and microaggressions on pre- and post-natal maternal mental health a...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr. Helena Rutherford an Assistant Professor at the Yale Child Study Center in the USA. We talk about her research using EEG (brain waves) to understand brain changes in pregnancy, how they predict postpartum outcomes, the role of reproductive experience on the brain and how dad's brain changes too. We also talk about the importance of understan...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr. Victoria Leong an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and an Affiliated Lecturer at University of Cambridge in England. We talk about her research on neural synchrony between mother and child in relation to cognition and emotion. We also talk about the importance of understanding the parental an...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr Katherine M. Sharkey, an Associate Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry & Human Behavior at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University in the USA. We talk about her research on sleep in motherhood and how it is related to maternal mood disorders and breastfeeding. She also does some myth busting: Is poor sleep in pregnancy preparing yo...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Aya Dudin, a PhD Candidate in Neuroscience, supervised by Dr. Geoffrey Hall, at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. We talk about her research on the neurobiology of Postpartum Depression and how it differs from that of Major Depression. We focus our discussion on her research in the Amygdala but we also talk about treatments for P...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr. Larry Young, a William P. Timmie Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the School of Medicine at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. We talk about his research on the neuroscience of oxytocin and bonding. So interesting! We also talk about oxytocin’s role in the maternal brain, mental illness and child development. Hearin...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Prof Paola Dazzan, Professor of Neurobiology of Psychosis, Vice Dean (International) at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, UK. We talk about her research investigating the neurobiology of Postpartum Psychosis. So important! We talk about the biological basis of this debilitating disorder, treatment...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr Catherine Dulac, Higgins Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the USA. We talk about her research on neurons expressing galanin in the MPOA and their essential role in parenting behaviors in females and males. So interesting! We also talk about the potential...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr Millie Rincón-Cortés, a Research Assistant Professor in Department of Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh in the USA. We talk about her research investigating VTA dopamine neuron activity in the postpartum maternal brain and its role in normative changes in postpartum mood and anxiety. We also talk about maternal separation from offs...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr Pilyoung Kim, an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Denver in Colorado where she heads the Family and Child Neuroscience Lab. We jump right in to talk about our experiences with Mommy Brain and then we talk stress and motherhood. Dr Kim’s research investigates how life stress, such as socioeconomic status...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Dr Benedetta Leuner who is an Associate Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at The Ohio State University in the USA.  We talk about her research investigating the neuroimmune changes in the maternal brain. So important! We talk about microglia changes during pregnancy and the postpartum, their role in neurop...

In this episode of Mommy Brain Revisited I talk with Winnie Orchard, a PhD candidate at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health and Monash Biomedical Imaging, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Her recent research focuses on parenthood and the aging brain in humans and she works under the supervision of Dr Sharna Jamadar. In this episode we talk about how parenting affects your brai...