Application of Simple Game to Rapid Measurement of Cognitive Function in Maternal Brain

In this paper, we considered applying the simple games “CogState Research” to our methodology for elucidating the activation/inactivation mechanisms of maternal brain functions. Forty healthy subjects were recruited from women living in Tokyo and the surrounding area, Japan. Ten were not pregnant (mean age ± SD: 21.1 ± 0.7) and 30 were postnatal. As it turned out, the postnatal subjects were divided into three groups (n=10) in accordance with the progress of their child raising: within only a year (mean age ± SD: 33.0 ± 3.8), one and a half years (mean age ± SD: 33.6 ± 4.1), and approximately two years (mean age ± SD: 36.9 ± 4.7). All the postnatal subjects were delivered of their first child. To begin with, we investigated variations in a woman's cognitive function after a time of childbearing, employing simple card games and a Groton Maze task. Secondly, hemodynamic changes at the prefrontal areas were measured using a multi-channel functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) apparatus equipped with 3×5 probes (22 ch). For the fNIRS measurements, we used two hearing tasks: the sound of baby crying, and the Chopin's nocturne as a control. Finally, we evaluated the changes of our subjects' emotional states in chronological order after their time of childbearing. The accuracies relating to OC learning in the postnatal women with one and a half years after childbearing were significantly higher, as contrasted with the nonpregnant ones (P <; 0.01). Furthermore, speed to GMLT task in the postnatal group was significantly higher, as contrasted with the nonpregnant one (P <; 0.01). In the results of our fNIRS data for the postnatal women, we detected the correlations between cognitive functions and prefrontal hemodynamics corresponding to functional changes in a women's hearing, as contrasted with the data results for the nonpregnant ones. Our findings support the idea that postnatal women's cognitive functions are closely connected with memory as well as their prefrontal hemodynamics corresponding to functional changes in female hearing capabilities.