Aug. 1, 2025
Menopause and the Brain
With long-running projects like SWAN and newer studies like MsHeart and MsBrain, Pitt is responding to women’s growing need for better information and support.
TOPICS: Aging & Lifespan | Menopause | School of Medicine
Look to the Stars
By Strategic Communications
Many women entering menopause “feel like they’re not getting enough information, feel like they’re not getting help from their providers about this very important time of life,” says Rebecca Thurston, Pittsburgh Foundation Professor of Women’s Health and Dementia and director of the Center for Women’s Biobehavioral Health Research, University of Pittsburgh.
Menopause historically has been poorly researched and not discussed openly enough, says Thurston, who, as a principal investigator on three major menopause studies, wants women to know that’s changing: “We fly under the radar screen, but there’s a wealth of science and fresh research going on here [at Pitt].” The most recent is the MenoBrain study. Funded by a $7.5 million grant over five years from the National Institutes of Health, the longitudinal study will follow 224 women entering perimenopause. Thurston says it’s “the most comprehensive study of women’s brain health during perimenopause.”
“Pitt is the hub of menopause research. And, women are clamoring for this information.”
Rebecca Thurston, Pittsburgh Foundation Professor of Women’s Health and Dementia
“Brain fog is reported by 40% of women transitioning through menopause, and it’s something we don’t understand because there’s been no large, longitudinal study of the brain changes of perimenopause,” says Thurston. She adds that MenoBrain seeks to elucidate “what’s happening with your brain and what’s driving that. Is it due to hormone changes? That might be one thing, but you also have sleep deprivation, and you have mood changes and vascular changes.”
A key component of the research involves Pitt’s 7-T MRI, an ultra high–field, high-strength imaging tool that lets researchers visualize various parts of delicate tissue like that in the brain. (T stands for the magnetic flux density unit Tesla.) With this technology, Thurston and her team will learn more about vascular changes in the brain—changes that put women at risk for stroke and dementia.
Pitt has also launched or played a central role in menopause research such as the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), which has followed 3,302 women since 1996, tracking the physical, biological, social and psychological changes they go through, and the MsHeart and MsBrain studies that each follow about 300 women, investigating cardiovascular and brain health.