The Changing Female Brain

Puberty, Pregnancy and Menopause as Times of Transition

There are moments in a woman’s life when change seems to happen everywhere at once.

The body changes. Sleep may change. Emotions can feel different. Energy shifts. Our relationship with ourselves can alter too.

For generations, we have largely explained puberty, pregnancy and menopause through the language of hormones. And of course hormones are an important part of the story.

But fascinating new research suggests that there is another part of that story happening within the brain itself.

A study published in Nature Communications in September 2026 examined structural brain changes across three of the major hormonal transitions in female life: puberty, pregnancy and menopause.

And what the researchers found invites us to think about these stages not simply as hormonal events, but as periods of profound biological transition.

A brain that changes with us

The researchers brought together longitudinal brain-imaging data from 1,095 females and women.

“Longitudinal” is important.

Rather than simply comparing different women of different ages, the researchers were able to look at changes occurring within individuals over time and compare those patterns with appropriate control groups.

They studied:

• girls transitioning through menarche

• women before and after pregnancy

• women transitioning from pre- to post-menopause

The researchers then examined whether the structural changes seen across these three stages were similar or different.

The answer was fascinating.

They were both.

Puberty and pregnancy: different journeys with some shared patterns

Both puberty and pregnancy were associated with widespread changes in cortical grey-matter volume.

At first, the phrase grey-matter reduction can sound alarming.

But less volume does not automatically mean a brain that is deteriorating or functioning less effectively.

The developing brain undergoes considerable structural refinement, and previous pregnancy research has suggested that some pregnancy-related changes may represent adaptive remodelling.

In pregnancy, some of the regions affected are involved in networks associated with social cognition. Previous research has therefore explored whether this remodelling might have relevance to maternal behaviour, caregiving and mother–infant bonding.

The new study found areas where puberty and pregnancy appeared to share patterns of cortical change, particularly across parts of the prefrontal, parietal and temporal association cortices.

Yet more than half of the cortical regions examined showed different patterns between the two transitions.

So this isn't a story of the brain simply repeating the same programme whenever reproductive hormones change.

It appears considerably more sophisticated than that.

The brain may be responding differently to the particular biological and developmental demands of each life stage.

And then we arrive at menopause.

Menopause isn't simply a story of decline

I find this part of the research particularly interesting.

Women are surrounded by the language of loss as they approach menopause.

Declining hormones.

Declining bone density.

Declining muscle mass.

Declining fertility.

And frequently, declining brain health.

It can create a picture of menopause in which a woman's body appears to be progressively failing her.

But the findings from this study are much more nuanced.

The researchers studied 843 women within the menopause cohort, including women who moved from pre-menopause to post-menopause between their brain scans.

The menopausal transition did not mirror the structural patterns observed during puberty and pregnancy.

In fact, the researchers described menopause as showing a qualitatively distinct pattern.

Women transitioning from pre- to post-menopause did not show statistically significant reductions in total or cortical grey-matter volume after the researchers applied their correction for multiple statistical comparisons.

Interestingly, the stable pre-menopausal and stable post-menopausal comparison groups did show significant reductions over time.

This does not mean that menopause prevents brain ageing.

Nor does it mean that the brain does not change during menopause.

And it certainly doesn't mean that the cognitive symptoms some women experience during perimenopause aren't real.

What it does tell us is that the relationship between menopause and the brain may be far more complex than the simple narrative:

oestrogen falls, therefore the brain declines.

Perhaps we need a richer conversation.

What if we thought about transition rather than deficit?

This is where the research resonates so strongly with the philosophy behind The Living Apothecary.

Throughout women's lives, we encounter periods when the familiar rhythms of our bodies change.

Puberty asks something new of the developing girl.

Pregnancy asks something extraordinary of the body and brain.

Menopause asks us to move from our reproductive years into another biological season altogether.

These experiences are not identical.

This research actually demonstrates how important those differences are.

But perhaps there is value in recognising all three as transitions rather than failures.

Within The Living Apothecary Method™, I often think about women's wellbeing through seasons and patterns rather than looking only at isolated symptoms.

Pregnancy belongs within Silver Branch.

Menopause sits within Elderwood.

They are different Houses precisely because they represent different landscapes.

The support someone needs during pregnancy is not the support she necessarily needs during menopause.

And neither woman should be reduced to a list of symptoms.

She is a whole person moving through change.

Supporting the person while the body changes

Research such as this doesn't tell us that a particular herb, essential oil, complementary therapy or wellbeing practice will alter these structural changes in the brain.

That distinction matters.

Good complementary healthcare should never take an interesting scientific finding and stretch it into a treatment claim the research hasn't demonstrated.

What the study can do is deepen our understanding of just how significant these biological transitions may be.

And that raises another question:

How do we care for ourselves while change is happening?

Sometimes support is remarkably simple.

Adequate rest.

Good nourishment.

Movement appropriate to the individual.

Connection with other people.

Time outside.

Reducing relentless demands where possible.

Creating moments in which the nervous system isn't continually being asked to respond to another task, another notification or another responsibility.

And, when symptoms require it, accessing appropriate medical advice and treatment.

Complementary therapy can sit alongside that wider picture of care — not promising to control the biology of transition, but providing time, touch, relaxation, reflection and individualised support while a person moves through it.

There is something profoundly different about asking:

“What is wrong with my body?”

and asking:

“What is my body moving through, and what support do I need while it does?”

Reading the research carefully

One study never gives us the whole story.

This research examined structural changes visible through MRI. Brain structure is not the same thing as someone's thoughts, emotions, memory or lived experience.

The three cohorts were also very different populations at very different stages of life.

The researchers themselves highlight how comparatively understudied the menopausal brain remains.

So we shouldn't turn these findings into another dramatic headline about women's brains.

Instead, they give researchers another piece of a much larger puzzle.

And perhaps they give the rest of us something equally valuable:

permission to remain curious.

A lifetime of becoming

Women's health has too often been viewed through what is going wrong.

Periods become problems.

Pregnancy becomes something to manage.

Menopause becomes something to fear.

Ageing becomes something to fight.

Yet the female body has an extraordinary capacity to adapt throughout a lifetime.

Science is beginning to reveal just how deeply some of those transitions may reach.

Perhaps the female brain isn't simply travelling along a straight line from development towards decline.

Perhaps its story is considerably richer than that.

A story of change.

Of adaptation.

Of different biological seasons requiring different things from us.

And, ultimately, a lifetime of becoming.

Research behind this article

Van ’t Hof, S.R. and colleagues (2026). Puberty, pregnancy, and menopause show shared and distinct structural changes across the lifespan. Nature Communications, 17, Article 9360. Published 8 September 2026.

The Living Apothecary encourages thoughtful engagement with emerging research. This article is for education and wellbeing information and is not intended to diagnose, treat or replace individual medical advice.