Episode 8: How Does Menopause Affect the Brain?

“Some women will transition without any long-term adverse effects. In women who have more symptoms during this transition, they might be at a higher risk of more accelerated brain aging, including cognitive decline or even increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease.” -Claudia Barth

In this week’s episode of Women’s Health Interrupted, we are joined by Dr. Claudia Barth to discuss the possible link between your brain health and menopause. She addresses how changes to your estrogen levels during menopause may be causing cognitive declines. Dr. Barth will also address other issues and things you can do to keep your brain healthy when going through menopause – and how to help other women during this period in their lives.

Links to resources mentioned in this episode:

• Associations between reproductive history, hormone use, APOE ε4 genotype and cognition in middle- to older-aged women from the UK Biobank
• Structural brain imaging in early-onset psychosis
• The impact of placental genetic risk for schizophrenia and birth asphyxia on brain development 
• A history of previous childbirths is linked to women’s white matter brain age in midlife and older age
• Towards an understanding of women’s brain aging: the immunology of pregnancy and menopause
• Cognition and mental health in menopause: A review
• Women Have Been Misled About Menopause

Guest Biography

Dr. Claudia Barth is a biologist who majored in neurobiology. During her PhD studies at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science in Leipzig, she started working at the front-line of women’s health research. She explored the effects of hormonal transition states on mental illnesses and the brain using dense-sampling approaches, large population-based datasets and machine learning tools. In her current role as early career researcher at the Diakonhjemmet Hospital and the Norwegian Centre for Mental Disorders Research, she serves as Co-Chair of the Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics Through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) Early Onset Psychosis Working Group. Furthermore, she co-founded the Women’s NeuroNetwork to enhance collaboration and academic excellence among female neuroscientists.