When a brain scientist at the University of California, Irvine got pregnant at the age of 38, she saw a rare chance. Neuroscientist Liz Chrastil wanted to see how her brain changed while she was pregnant. 

当加州大学欧文分校的一位脑科学家在 38 岁时怀孕时，她看到了一个难得的机会。神经科学家莉兹·克拉斯蒂尔想看看她怀孕期间大脑发生了怎样的变化。 

Chrastil was among a group of researchers who presented their findings in a new study. It offers the first detailed map of one woman’s brain through the steps of pregnancy, also called gestation. 

克拉斯蒂尔是一组研究人员之一，他们在一项新研究中展示了他们的发现。它提供了第一个女性在怀孕（也称为妊娠）各个阶段的大脑详细图谱。

Researchers say that motherhood affects nearly every part of the brain. 

研究人员表示，母性几乎影响大脑的每个部分。 

The researchers studied the effects of pregnancy in only one person: Chrastil. But their study has started a large international research project that aims to scan the brains of hundreds of women. The study could one day provide information about disorders like postpartum depression. Postpartum means after birth has taken place. 

研究人员只研究了怀孕对一个人的影响：克里斯提尔。但他们的研究已经启动了一个大型国际研究项目，旨在扫描数百名女性的大脑。这项研究有一天可能会提供有关产后抑郁症等疾病的信息。产后是指出生后发生的。 

Chrastil said it has been a very long process. “We did 26 scans before, during and after pregnancy…” She said some of the findings were very noteworthy, or in her words “remarkable.” Chrastil is co-writer of the study that researchers published in Nature Neuroscience in September. 

克拉斯蒂尔表示，这是一个非常漫长的过程。“我们在怀孕前、怀孕期间和怀孕后进行了 26 次扫描……”她说，其中一些发现非常值得注意，或者用她的话来说“非常了不起”。Chrastil 是研究人员于 9 月份在《自然神经科学》杂志上发表的这项研究的合著者。 

More than 80 percent of the parts of the brain studied had reductions in the amount of gray matter, where thinking takes place. This is an average of about four percent of the brain. This amount is nearly the same as the amount of reduction that happens during puberty. Puberty is the biological changes that cause a person to become a fertile adult. 

研究中超过 80% 的大脑区域的灰质数量减少，灰质是进行思考的地方。这平均约为大脑的百分之四。这个量几乎与青春期期间发生的减少量相同。青春期是导致一个人成为具有生育能力的成年人的生物变化。 

However, the researchers said the reduction is probably not a bad thing. It might mean that networks of interconnected nerve cells called “neural circuits” are preparing for a new time in a woman's life. 

然而，研究人员表示，减少可能并不是一件坏事。这可能意味着被称为“神经回路”的相互连接的神经细胞网络正在为女性生命中的新时代做好准备。