Mother's stress during pregnancy affects baby's brain
New York: Confirming a long-held belief that stress during pregnancy is bad for the unborn kid, a new study has found that remaining stress-free during this period helps the brain development of the baby.
A mother's stress during pregnancy changes neural connectivity in the brain of her unborn child, according to the study presented at a meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society in Boston, Massachusetts.
"We have demonstrated what has long been theorised, but not yet observed in a human, which is that the stress of a mother during her pregnancy is reflected in connectional properties of her child's developing brain," said one of the researchers Moriah Thomason of Wayne State University in the US.
Research in newborns and older children to understand prenatal influences has been confounded by the postnatal environment, Thomason explained.
But recent advancements in foetal imaging allowed the researchers to gain insight into a critical time period in brain development never previously accessible.
Using foetal resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), they examined functional connectivity in 47 human foetuses scanned between the 30th and 37th week of gestation.
The researchers recruited the participating mothers from a low-resource and high-stress urban setting, with many reporting high-levels of depression, anxiety, worry and stress.
They found that mothers reporting high stress had foetuses with a reduced efficiency in how their neural functional systems are organised.
The data suggests that the brain does not develop in a sequence from the simplest systems to more complex high-order systems, but perhaps instead first develops the areas that will be most critical in bridging across systems.
The researchers found that the cerebellum played a central role in the observed effects, suggesting it may be especially vulnerable to the effects of prenatal or early life stress.
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Goa is not lab for BJP's experiments, says Congress on Centre's suggestion about nuclear plant
Panaji (PTI): Opposition parties have objected to the Centre's suggestion to set up a nuclear power plant in Goa, with Congress saying the coastal state is not "a laboratory for BJP's dangerous experiments".
Union Minister for Power, Housing and Urban Affairs Manohar Lal Khattar said that the Central government has suggested that the states examine the feasibility of setting up nuclear power plants in their respective areas and send proposals.
Speaking to reporters, Khattar said he had discussed the possibility of setting up a nuclear power plant in a review meeting of the Urban Development and Power sector in Goa.
In a post on X, Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Amit Patkar said, "Goa is not a laboratory for @BJP4India's dangerous experiments. I strongly condemn Shri @mlkhattar's absurd proposal of setting up a nuclear power plant in our peaceful, eco-sensitive state of Goa."
He alleged that the BJP government had already destroyed Goa's hills, forests, agriculture and rivers, and it now wants to put people's lives at risk with a nuclear hazard.
"We will resist this anti-Goa agenda with full force. Our land, livelihoods & environment are non-negotiable," Patkar wrote.
The Aam Aadmi Party's state unit president, Amit Palekar, questioned the need for a nuclear plant in Goa when Kaiga in Karwar (Karnataka) has a facility.
The Centre and state government are out to destroy Goa, he said.
"@AAPGoa will fight tooth and nail if any such misadventure is attempted. Lakhs of square meters of Goan lands have been given to private universities etc., all with the interest of BJP functionaries, and now whatever is left of Goa is sought to be destroyed with such projects. Who has interest in this?" he wrote.
