How Estrogen and Genetics Affects Memory and Mental Health

A recent study from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) researched how estrogen levels interact with genetics to impact brain function in women. Researchers found that women with a specific version of the BDNF gene which is present in about 25% of white women, experience unusual activity in the brain’s hippocampus during memory tasks when their estrogen levels fluctuate. The hippocampus, a region tied to memory and learning, usually suppresses activity during these tasks, but the gene-hormone interaction appears to disrupt this process.

This discovery helps explain why some women experience mental health challenges, like postpartum depression or anxiety, while others don’t, even when exposed to the same hormonal changes. It also explains the broader patterns in mental health differences between men and women, such as why mood disorders are more common in women or why schizophrenia tends to appear later in women than in men. The study involved brain scans (PET and fMRI) of women performing memory tasks while researchers controlled estrogen levels over several months. The consistent results across different imaging techniques reinforce the accuracy of the findings. 

This research offers new insight into how genetics and hormones work together to shape mental health and could pave the way for future approaches to treatment. This study shows why mental health conditions vary so much between men and women by highlighting how individual differences in genes and hormones influence brain function.

Reference: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2017/estrogen-alters-memory-circuit-function-in-women-with-gene-variant

Reference 2: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28416813/