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Women with a history of previous childbirths show less evident white matter brain ageing

View ORCID ProfileIrene Voldsbekk, View ORCID ProfileClaudia Barth, View ORCID ProfileIvan I. Maximov, View ORCID ProfileTobias Kaufmann, View ORCID ProfileDani Beck, View ORCID ProfileGeneviève Richard, View ORCID ProfileTorgeir Moberget, View ORCID ProfileLars T. Westlye, View ORCID ProfileAnn-Marie G. de Lange
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.20.391698
Irene Voldsbekk
aNORMENT, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, & Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
bDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
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  • For correspondence: irene.voldsbekk@psykologi.uio.no
Claudia Barth
aNORMENT, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, & Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
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Ivan I. Maximov
aNORMENT, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, & Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
bDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
cDepartment of Health and Functioning, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway
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Tobias Kaufmann
aNORMENT, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, & Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
dDepartment of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Germany
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Dani Beck
aNORMENT, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, & Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
bDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
eSunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital HT, Nesodden, Oslo, Norway
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Geneviève Richard
aNORMENT, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, & Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
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Torgeir Moberget
aNORMENT, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, & Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
bDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
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Lars T. Westlye
aNORMENT, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, & Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
bDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
fKG Jebsen Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
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Ann-Marie G. de Lange
aNORMENT, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, & Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
bDepartment of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
gDepartment of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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Abstract

Maternal brain adaptations occur in response to pregnancy, but little is known about how parity impacts white matter (WM) microstructure and WM ageing trajectories later in life. Utilising global and regional brain-age prediction based on multi-shell diffusion MRI data, we investigated the association between previous childbirths and WM brain age in 8,895 women in the UK Biobank cohort (age range = 54 - 81 years). The results showed that a higher number of previous childbirths was associated with lower WM brain age, in line with previous studies showing less evident grey matter (GM) brain ageing in parous relative to nulliparous women. Both global WM and GM brain age estimates showed unique contributions to the association with previous childbirths, suggesting partly independent processes. Corpus callosum contributed uniquely to the global WM association with previous childbirths, and showed a stronger relationship relative to several other tracts. While our findings demonstrate a link between reproductive history and brain WM characteristics later in life, longitudinal studies are required to understand how parity influences women’s WM trajectories across the lifespan.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted November 22, 2020.
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Women with a history of previous childbirths show less evident white matter brain ageing
Irene Voldsbekk, Claudia Barth, Ivan I. Maximov, Tobias Kaufmann, Dani Beck, Geneviève Richard, Torgeir Moberget, Lars T. Westlye, Ann-Marie G. de Lange
bioRxiv 2020.11.20.391698; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.20.391698
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Women with a history of previous childbirths show less evident white matter brain ageing
Irene Voldsbekk, Claudia Barth, Ivan I. Maximov, Tobias Kaufmann, Dani Beck, Geneviève Richard, Torgeir Moberget, Lars T. Westlye, Ann-Marie G. de Lange
bioRxiv 2020.11.20.391698; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.20.391698

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