Experts argue that the menopause should be reframed as a neurological condition , not a gynaecological one – here’s why, and what to do about it I am turning 40 and honestly – really – I feel fine about my ageing body. My husband and I will grow more wrinkled and stooped in tandem. That seems fair enough.
A growing field of research, however, suggests that as we enter into this new midlife phase, my brain will begin to age, change and decline in ways that his will not. And this inequality is the straw that broke the camel’s back or, if you will, the symptom that snapped my peri-menopausal patience. If my husband and I sat down to take a verbal memory test today, it’s quite likely I would trounce him.
If we sat the same test in around a decade’s time, however, the tables might turn. On average, adult women perform better than men at such skills, explains Jill Goldstein, a professor of psychiatry and medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the founder of the Innovation Centre on Sex Differences in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. That advantage, however, narrows during the menopause.
Professor Goldstein’s own work has probed some of the reasons for this. “We’ve shown that, for women in early midlife, the importance of reproductive age is distinct from chronological age, whereas for men in early midlife, it is chronological age that drives memory changes,” she explains. Brain changes during the menopause The influence of sex hormones – oestroge.
