Functional Remodeling of the Maternal Brain: Linking Brain c-Fos Dynamics to Behavioral Changes in Pregnancy: An Exploratory Study.

As an exploratory study with a limited sample size, this work systematically examined pregnancy-induced changes in neural activity by analyzing c-Fos expression across the whole brain of pregnant mice. The results showed that 36 brain regions-including the cortex, hippocampus, thalamus, and hypothalamus-exhibited dynamic changes in c-Fos expression throughout pregnancy. Behavioral tests revealed that pregnant mice displayed increased anxiety-like behavior in the elevated plus maze. Group-level descriptive correlation analysis indicated nominal directional trends between regional c-Fos expression and anxiety-related behavior, but no associations remained statistically significant after multiple testing correction. Furthermore, comparison with human prenatal brain imaging data suggested that adaptive changes in the hippocampus and hypothalamus are conserved across species. These preliminary findings provide initial insights into understanding brain adaptation during pregnancy, and require validation in larger cohort studies.