Scientists Surprised by Brain Changes During Menopause: What Has a New Study Revealed? 

Menopause is most often associated with hormonal shifts and their effects on women’s well-being. But what happens in the brain during this time? As October marks Menopause Awareness Month, Prof. Ramunė Grikšienė from the Life Sciences Center of Vilnius University (VU) highlights a new study that revealed unexpected changes in the female brain at different life stages.  

Published in Nature Communications, the study by researchers in the Netherlands analysed brain imaging data from more than a thousand women and girls. The scientists sought to understand how the brain changes during three major hormonal transitions: adolescence, pregnancy, and menopause.  

The findings showed that the brain undergoes remarkably similar processes of reorganisation during adolescence and pregnancy. Menopause, however, brought a surprising finding: the decline in grey matter volume usually associated with ageing was not observed among women who underwent this hormonal transition during the study.  

Unexpected patterns of brain change during menopause  

According to Prof. Grikšienė, research has long focused primarily on brain development in childhood and adolescence, while interest in the effects of pregnancy on the brain has grown in recent years. The processes taking place during menopause, however, have received far less attention.  

‘We know that the human brain changes throughout life and gradually decreases in volume with age. This decline even accelerates during puberty and pregnancy. Thus, researchers expected to see significant changes in brain volume during the menopausal transition as well. But the results told a different story,’ the Professor noted.  

The authors of the study found no significant reduction in total grey matter volume in women who moved from premenopause to postmenopause during the observation period. By contrast, a decline was observed in women who remained either premenopausal or postmenopausal throughout that period.  

‘This is one of the most interesting findings of the study. It seems that the usual age-related changes in brain structure may temporarily slow down or take a different course during the menopausal transition. But this certainly doesn’t mean that nothing is happening in the brain during this time,’ Prof. Grikšienė pointed out.  

In her view, the findings suggest that menopause may be a distinct phase of brain adaptation, with biological mechanisms that researchers are only beginning to understand.  

What do adolescence and pregnancy have in common?  

Another important finding of the study is that the female brain changes in much more similar ways during adolescence and pregnancy than we might expect. The researchers found that grey matter volume decreases during both stages of life, at an average rate of around 0.13% per month during adolescence and approximately 0.11–0.12% per month during pregnancy.  

These changes extended across much of the cerebral cortex, rather than being confined to a few isolated regions; moreover, they followed a coordinated pattern across different areas of the brain.  

‘At first glance, a reduction in grey matter volume may sound concerning. During these stages of life, however, it may reflect the brain reorganising itself and adapting to new demands,’ Prof. Grikšienė explained.  

During adolescence, the brain undergoes intensive maturation, as its networks reorganise and become more specialised. These processes are thought to help the brain function more efficiently. Changes during pregnancy, meanwhile, may help prepare women for motherhood.  

‘Earlier studies have shown that pregnancy brings pronounced changes in the brain regions involved in social cognition and the ability to understand other people’s mental states. These processes are thought to play a role in bonding between mother and baby and in adapting to a new role in life,’ the Professor explained.  

Nevertheless, the brain does not undergo identical changes during adolescence and pregnancy. For instance, those in regions responsible for processing movement and bodily signals were more pronounced and occurred more rapidly during adolescence.  

Hormones do more than work in the background 

What drives these patterns at different stages of a woman’s life? One key factor researchers are examining closely is the role of sex hormones. Oestrogen levels rise significantly during puberty and pregnancy, but begin to fall during the menopausal transition. 

For this reason, the authors of the study initially expected menopause to bring changes in the opposite direction to those seen during adolescence and pregnancy. However, their findings pointed to a more complex relationship between hormones and brain structure.  

‘Fluctuations in hormone levels are more than a background biological process for the brain. A growing body of research suggests that they may be associated with significant modifications to brain structure and function. To better understand women’s brain health, we also need to take their hormonal status into account,’ said Prof. Grikšienė.  

According to the scientist, this is also relevant to understanding changes in women’s well-being at different stages of life.  

‘Shifts in mood, emotions, cognitive function, or general well-being during hormonal transitions are unlikely to be coincidental. At least some may be linked to adaptive processes taking place in the brain. But we still need to establish exactly which mechanisms are involved,’ she added.  

Much remains to be understood about the female brain 

Although the new study offers valuable insights into the plasticity of the female brain, researchers stress that its findings should be interpreted with caution.  

Many questions remain unanswered, particularly about the menopausal transition. Very few long-term studies have tracked how the female brain changes as women move from their reproductive years into postmenopause.  

According to Prof. Grikšienė, the new findings are a reminder that female brain development continues beyond adolescence and that brain adaptation can take different forms throughout life.  

‘The female brain is not a static system. It is constantly changing and adapting to major biological events in life, yet it may do so differently at each stage. We can now say that menopause is more than a period of hormonal change – it is also an important and still insufficiently studied stage in the life of the brain,’ the Professor concluded.