Shrunken gray matter? Decrease in cortical thickness? It sounds as though the brain might be deteriorating, or losing some of its abilities. Instead, the lead author, Hoekzema, explained to me, volume loss can show a “fine-tuning of connections.” Synaptic reorganization and fine-tuning, it is thought, make the brain more efficient and streamlined in what it needs to do to care for a baby. Or as Pawluski puts it, “to make sure we, and our child, survive parenthood.”
