Scientist Sees How Birth Control Shrinks Her Brain – DW – 10/25/2024

Neuroscientist Karina Heller sought to understand how the brain changes throughout the menstrual cycle, with or without oral contraceptive use. To do this, Heller scanned his brain 75 times over the course of a year.

Preliminary findings presented at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting suggest that brain morphology and connectivity change daily throughout the natural cycle and are influenced by birth control pills.

The female brain is poorly understood, and the impact that birth control may have on it is not yet fully understood. Fed up with his lack of knowledge, Heller decided to research the topic. This research is discussed in a publication in the journal Nature.

may provide valuable information to women and physicians about the effects of this widely used medication.

Experiment

There are different brain imaging techniques, but Karina Heller chose the “dense sampling” method: collecting multiple brain scans to record brain activity with high temporal precision and detect rapid changes in different brain regions.

Heller completed 25 scans over 5 weeks, taking images at different phases of her natural menstrual cycle. After a few months, she started taking oral contraceptives, and after 3 months, she was tested again 25 times over 5 weeks.

She then stopped taking the tablets and was back three months later for 25 scans in 5 weeks. At each session, he also had blood drawn and filled out a questionnaire about his mood.

The images showed changes in brain volume and connectivity throughout the menstrual cycle. There was a slight decrease in volume and coherence while taking birth control pills. When Heller stopped taking birth control, the brain largely returned to its original state, demonstrating the brain’s ability to adapt.

Birth control pill

Oral contraceptives usually contain synthetic versions of natural hormones such as progesterone and estrogen, which prevent pregnancy and, among other things, prevent the release of eggs.

The first oral contraceptive was approved in the United States in 1960. Currently, more than 150 million people of reproductive age use oral contraceptives, making them one of the most widely used medications in the world.

Many people start taking the pill during puberty, a critical stage of brain maturation, so it’s important to understand its impact on neurodevelopment, explains Katherine Lentz, a behavioral neuroscientist at Ohio State University.

What’s next?

Heller plans to compare her data with that of a woman with endometriosis, a painful condition that affects up to 10% of women of reproductive age, to see if hormonal fluctuations in the brain may be responsible for the condition.

These data sets “will offer us truly exciting insights into the relationship between hormonal status and subtle changes in brain structure and behavioral function,” Lentz concluded.

mbt (New Scientist, Nature)