PHOTOGRAPH BY DR P. MARAZZI, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
The Menstrual Cycle Can Reshape Your Brain
UC Noyce Initiative researcher prominently featured in National Geographic article.
Director, Ann S. Bowers Women's Brain Health Initiative
In February 2024, National Geographic prominently featured the work of UC Noyce Initiative researcher and neuroscientist from UC Santa Barbara, Emily Jacobs, in an article that focuses on how the brain changes throughout the menstrual cycle.
The article shares that recent MRI scans of women's brains show that the rise and fall of estrogen during the menstrual cycle dramatically reshapes regions of the brain that govern emotions, memory, behavior and the efficiency of information transfer. Jacobs, who is director of the Ann S. Bowers Women’s Brain Health Initiative—a project that receives funding from the UC Noyce Initiative—gave perspective as to why this matters.
"Through these studies, we now have this picture emerging of how potent these hormones are for shaping, not just brain morphology but also the functional architecture," Jacobs said in the article.