YOUR BRAIN ON MENOPAUSE: In this seven-part series, I explore menopause from a brain health perspective with a particular focus on the neurobiology of hot flashes, sleep, mood and memory, the role of hormone therapies and their long-term effects on the brain. This is Part 6. This is a long and detailed read. Click here to download the series as a PDF to read offline. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT; also called menopausal hormone therapy, MHT) is a drug combination of oestrogen and progesterone, and sometimes testosterone. It is most commonly used to treat symptoms of peri ..read more

YOUR BRAIN ON MENOPAUSE: In this seven-part series, I explore menopause from a brain health perspective with a particular focus on the neurobiology of hot flashes, sleep, mood and memory, the role of hormone therapies and their long-term effects on the brain. This is Part 4. This is a long and detailed read. Click here to download the series as a PDF to read offline. When I was writing my book on women’s brain health (and being in my relatively inexperienced early 40s) I asked my older wiser bookclub friends what they struggled with most during their menopause transition. They a ..read more

YOUR BRAIN ON MENOPAUSE: In this seven-part series I explore menopause from a brain health perspective with a particular focus on the neurobiology of hot flashes, sleep, mood and memory, the role of hormone therapies and their long-term effects on the brain. This is Part 2. This is a long and detailed read. Click here to download the series as a PDF to read offline. The pattern of hormone changes across the entire menopause is very well characterised. But each woman follows her own hormonal trajectory. Like puberty and pregnancy (and all life experiences, really), there is huge ..read more

YOUR BRAIN ON MENOPAUSE: In this seven-part series I explore menopause from a brain health perspective with a particular focus on the neurobiology of hot flashes, sleep, mood and memory, the role of hormone therapies and their long-term effects on the brain. This is Part 1. Because this article is a long read, readers can download and keep a PDF copy of the article by clicking here. From fecundity to the free-fall of fertility. As I write this, I find myself rather reluctantly in the early stages of ‘midlife’. A phase I’ve come to think of as the old age of youth, or perhaps the yout ..read more