Raising children seems to have an anti-ageing effect on parents’ brains later in life
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The “baby brain” phenomenon – a phrase for the mental fog some individuals experience in pregnancy and early parenthood – implies that having children negatively affects the brain. But parenthood might actually protect both mothers’ and fathers’ brains against age-related declines, and the effect increases with each additional child.
In the largest ever study of brain function in parents, researchers compared MRI scans from more than 37,000 adults aged 40 to 70 in the UK Biobank study.…
