hormones

Read this recent Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can arti­cle show­ing clear­ly how the brain can change based on our dai­ly expe­ri­ences and actions:

… a new study in the jour­nal Brain Research demon­strates that […] birth con­trol pills have struc­tur­al effects on regions of the brain that gov­ern high­er-order cog­ni­tive activities

… Where­as the sub­tle struc­tur­al effects of nat­u­ral­ly-occur­ring steroid hor­mones and sex dif­fer­ences in the brain have been exten­sive­ly stud­ied, few stud­ies have exam­ined the role of syn­thet­ic hor­mones on changes in the human brain.  What hap­pens, then, when the female brain gets a sig­nif­i­cant and arti­fi­cial dose of steroid hor­mone, either prog­es­terone, estro­gen or both? […] It appears that the brain, that sen­si­tive organ replete with steroid recep­tors, reacts to its hor­mon­al milieu with star­tling struc­tur­al modifications.

Com­ments: The study com­pared the brains of men, women cycling nat­u­ral­ly and women tak­ing the pill. Struc­tur­al dif­fer­ences in spe­cif­ic areas were found a) between men’s and wom­en’s brains, b) between the brains of women cycling nat­u­ral­ly when observed at dif­fer­ent moments of their cycle, and c) between the brains of women cycling nat­u­ral­ly and those of women tak­ing the pill. Over­all the study points out that hor­mones can affect brain struc­tures via neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, the abil­i­ty of the brain to change. Since no cog­ni­tive mea­sures were used it is not pos­si­ble to know whether any of these struc­tur­al changes  alter our per­for­mance at all. There is no evi­dence so far as to whether these struc­tur­al chances are bad or good.