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Physical Activity During Pregnancy and Cortical Gray Matter Development in Children: A Neuroimaging Study

JSHS · 2025

Lilian Ouyang, Xiaoxu Na · Little Rock Central High School, Little Rock AR

Overview

Many factors during pregnancy can potentially impact in utero brain development and have long- term consequences. To identify modifiable factors during pregnancy that can promote early brain development and long-term outcomes is very important. Physical activity during pregnancy is safe and may benefit the health of both the pregnant women and their offspring. However, it is unknown whether it will also impact offspring brain which develops rapidly during the gestation period. This research project aims to s tudy the relationships between mother’s physical activity level throughout pregnancy and child’s cortical gray matter development measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and neurodevelopmental outcomes measured by the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) at age 8 years. The hypothesis is that higher physical activity levels in the mothers is associated with better cortical development and neurodevelopmental outcomes in the children. High -resolution brain MRI datasets were post - processed using advanced methods and statistics tests were performed to study the relationships between physical activity parameters and cortical measurements as well as BRIEF scores. Eight regions in the left-brain hemisphere and four regions in the right brain hemisphere showed significant positive correlations in cortical gray matter v olume or surface area with mother’s physical activity during pregnancy. There were also significant correlations between physical activity parameters and BRIEF scores, indicating that the more physical activity throughout the mother’s pregnancy, the less e xecutive functions and neurobehavior issues in children. These novel results suggest that mother’s physical activity during pregnancy benefits offspring’s cortical gray matter development and neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Competition history

  • JSHS 2025 Category not listed

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