Raz Sivan
Department of Psychology, The Per Sternberg EEG-ERP Laboratory for the Study of Brain and Behavior, Tel Hai College, Upper Galilee, Israel.
Department of Behavioral Sciences, The Center for Psychobiological Research, The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, 19300, Emek Yezreel, Israel.
Arch Womens Ment Health. 2025 Feb;28(1):25-42. doi: 10.1007/s00737-024-01503-8. Epub 2024 Aug 21.
Research on cognitive and emotional functions during pregnancy challenges the prevalent perception of cognitive decline in pregnant women. This study investigates the behavioral and neural dynamics of cognitive-affective processing in third-trimester pregnant women, comparing them with non-pregnant controls.
Using a 64-channel EEG-ERP system, we recorded brain activity as participants engaged in an emotional word recognition task. This task involved initially viewing a sequence of emotional and neutral words, followed by a recognition test where participants identified each word as 'new' or 'previously seen'.
Contrary to widespread beliefs about diminished recognition ability during late pregnancy, our results revealed no significant differences in error rates between groups. However, pregnant participants demonstrated slower reaction times. In terms of neural responses, pregnant women exhibited increased amplitudes in the N1, P2, and N400 ERP components, suggesting that they may require additional brain resources compared with non-pregnant individuals to process perceptual information. A significant interaction was observed between pregnancy status and the emotional valence of stimuli. Pregnant women showed heightened N1 and N400 responses to negative words, indicating increased sensitivity to stimuli potentially representing threat. This enhanced response was not observed for positive or neutral words. Furthermore, there was an amplified N1 response to 'new' words, but not to 'old' words.
These findings suggest that late pregnancy is characterized by heightened responsiveness to new and particularly negative stimuli, potentially leading to a more cautious behavioral approach. Heightened vigilance and sensitivity could offer evolutionary advantages, optimizing fetal development and enhancing maternal well-being.
关于孕期认知和情绪功能的研究对孕妇认知能力下降这一普遍认知提出了挑战。本研究调查了孕晚期孕妇认知-情感加工的行为和神经动力学，并与未怀孕的对照组进行比较。
使用64通道脑电图-事件相关电位（EEG-ERP）系统，在参与者进行情绪词汇识别任务时记录大脑活动。该任务首先是观看一系列情绪词和中性词，然后进行识别测试，参与者将每个词识别为“新的”或“之前见过的”。
与关于孕晚期识别能力下降的普遍看法相反，我们的结果显示两组之间的错误率没有显著差异。然而，怀孕的参与者反应时间较慢。在神经反应方面，孕妇在N1、P2和N400 ERP成分中表现出振幅增加，这表明与未怀孕个体相比，她们可能需要额外的大脑资源来处理感知信息。观察到怀孕状态与刺激的情绪效价之间存在显著交互作用。孕妇对负面词汇表现出增强的N1和N400反应，表明对潜在代表威胁的刺激敏感性增加。对正面或中性词汇未观察到这种增强反应。此外，对“新”词有增强的N1反应，但对“旧”词没有。
这些发现表明，孕晚期的特点是对新的尤其是负面刺激反应增强，这可能导致更谨慎的行为方式。提高警惕性和敏感性可能具有进化优势，可优化胎儿发育并增强母亲的幸福感。
