Changes in the brain during menopause are very different from those seen during puberty or pregnancy, despite each of these life stages involving hormonal changes, according to Dutch researchers. They scanned the brains of more than 200 women who were either pregnant, going through puberty, going through menopause, or none of the above. They found the brain's grey matter shrunk at an accelerated rate during early puberty and pregnancy, but not during menopause, when it stayed stable. Grey matter shrinkage during puberty in girls is a normal process that makes the brain faster and more efficient, and during pregnancy, it acts as a positive, adaptive 'fine-tuning' of the brain, so shrinkage at these points of life isn't something women need to be concerned about. The authors also note some limitations with their research: menopausal status was self-reported, which can be unreliable; and direct measurements of hormones were not part of the study. Further work that includes more objective measures of menopause and direct hormone measurements should be carried out to confirm the findings, they conclude.
Menopause-linked brain changes may differ from those in puberty, pregnancy
