r/PMDD • u/DefiantThroat Perimenopause • Nov 02 '24

Peer Reviewed Research In a First, Scientists Found Structural, Brain-Wide Changes During Menstruation

https://www.sciencealert.com/in-a-first-scientists-found-structural-brain-wide-changes-during-menstruation
405 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

View all comments

14

u/kelvinside_men Nov 03 '24

I can't say I'm at all surprised. Pregnancy changes the brain, so why not menstruation?

2

u/Eggs76 Nov 03 '24

I hazard a guess a lot of the menstrual cycle changes are confounded by physiological nuisance variables. Pregnancy brain changes are easier to study as you have more time to track change. It's also hard to disentangle the behavioural component vs the physiological component of pregnancy. For example, the decreased grey matter volume post partum could be driven by lack of sleep and mood changes, etc. any dynamic system is SO hard to study and the tools we have to do it are limited in many ways

1

u/kelvinside_men Nov 03 '24

I mean there's also the fact that they're not sure what the observed changes even mean in terms of what's happening inside the brain, so yeah, it's really not very conclusive of anything much. I suppose we should be happy they are studying it at all!