Previous pregnancies might mitigate cortical brain differences associated with surgical menopause Articles uri icon

authors

  • FERNANDEZ PENA, ALBERTO
  • NAVAS SANCHEZ, FRANCISCO JAVIER
  • MARTIN DE BLAS, DANIEL
  • MARCOS VIDAL, LUIS
  • DESCO MENENDEZ, MANUEL
  • CARMONA CAÑABATE, SUSANA

publication date

  • January 2024

issue

  • 1, nº artículo e26538

volume

  • 45

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 1065-9471

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1097-0193

abstract

  • Surgical menopause causes a sharp drop in estrogen levels in middle-aged women,thus preventing the gradual physiological adaptation that is characteristic of the peri-menopause. Previous studies suggest that surgical menopause might increase the riskof dementia later in life. In addition, the transition to motherhood entails long-lastingendocrine and neuronal adaptations. We compared differences in whole-brain corti-cal volume between women who reached menopause by surgery and a group ofwomen who reached spontaneous non-surgical menopause and determined whetherthese cortical differences were influenced by previous childbearing. Using surface-based neuroimaging techniques, we investigated cortical volume differences in201 middle-aged women (134 women who experienced non-surgical menopause,78 of whom were parous women; and 67 women who experienced surgical meno-pause, 39 of whom were parous women). We found significant atrophy in the frontaland temporal regions in women who experienced surgical menopause. Nulliparouswomen with surgical menopause showed significant lower cortical volume in the lefttemporal gyrus extending to the medial temporal lobe cortex, as well as in the precu-neus bilaterally compared to parous women with surgical menopause; whereas ourresults revealed no significant differences between parous women with surgical men-opause and both parous and nulliparous women who reached a non-surgical meno-pause. Furthermore, in the surgical menopause group, we found a negativecorrelation between cortical volume and age at first pregnancy in the temporal lobe.Our study suggests that the long-term brain remodeling of parity may mitigate theneural impact of the sudden drop in estrogen levels that characterizes surgicalmenopause.K E Y W O R D Scortical atrophy, menopause, neuroimaging, oophorectomy, parity.

subjects

  • Biology and Biomedicine
  • Medicine

keywords

  • scortical atrophy; menopause; neuroimaging; oophorectomy; parity.