Studies show that the volume or thickness of certain brain regions expand during monthly periods—but they don’t reveal whether that’s connected to emotional fluctuations.
Colored coronal magnetic resonance imaging scan of the brain of a healthy, premenopausal 32-year-old woman. A recent study infound that during the menstrual cycle, women experience changes in the volume of specific brain regions. Elma Jashim, a recent college graduate is looking forward to beginning medical school in the fall. But she is also dreading the monthly emotional roller coaster that occurs with her menstrual cycle and the havoc it could wreak with her busy academic schedule.
"It's amazing to see that the adult brain can change superfast," says Julia Sacher, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, who ledThe strengths of these studies are that brain imaging and hormone measurements were done in the same individuals, across specific phases of the menstrual cycle, says Woolley.
That parts of brain that respond to the female sex hormones was first discovered almost three decades back. In 1990, Woolley serendipitously discovered that "She was like the Marie Curie of neuroscience," says Jacobs. From the 30 scans of this one woman’s brain, Jacobs’ team found that sex hormones reshaped the hippocampus and reorganized the brain’s connections. However, it wasn't clear howTo address the question, the scientists in Leipzig and Santa Barbara have now independently scanned the brains of more than 50 women during multiple points during their menstrual cycles for two unrelated studies.
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