Menopause is often described as a time of major change for the body, but what happens to the brain during this transition is still not fully understood. A new study published in Nature Communications offers an unexpected finding. While the brain undergoes measurable structural changes during puberty and pregnancy, researchers found that these changes appear to pause during menopause.
The researchers analyzed more than 1,000 brain scans from women at different stages of life. They compared brain structure before, during and after puberty, pregnancy and menopause. During puberty and pregnancy, they observed reductions in grey matter, particularly in areas of the cerebral cortex involved in processes such as memory, reasoning and other complex cognitive functions. These changes are understood as part of the brain adapting to major hormonal transitions rather than simply losing brain function.
Menopause showed a very different pattern. Instead of observing a similar reduction in grey matter, the researchers found that the usual age-related decline in grey matter appeared to temporarily stop during the menopausal transition. After menopause, the gradual decline associated with ageing resumed.
The finding is particularly interesting because many women experience what is commonly called brain fog during the menopausal transition, including difficulties with concentration, memory and mental clarity. The study does not show that these experiences are imaginary or unimportant. Rather, it suggests that changes in the amount of grey matter alone cannot explain what women experience during menopause.
The researchers emphasize that much more work is needed. The study did not directly establish how these structural changes relate to cognition, mood or mental health, and it did not measure hormones in the same way across all participants.
What this research does show is that the brain remains remarkably dynamic throughout life. Puberty, pregnancy and menopause are all periods of profound hormonal change, but the brain does not respond to them in the same way. Understanding these differences could help scientists better understand women’s brain health across the lifespan and challenge the idea that menopause represents simply a period of decline.
Source
van ’t Hof, S. R., Bos, M. G. N., Straathof, M. et al. (2026). Puberty, pregnancy, and menopause show shared and distinct structural changes across the lifespan. Nature Communications (Link)
Serra Húnter Fellow of Sociology at Universitat Rovira i Virgili.
Former DAAD-Gastprofessorin at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg