OSCR

Structural Brain Changes Across the Female Lifespan: Puberty, Pregnancy, and Menopause Show Shared and Distinct Trajectories

Overview

Authors: S.R. van ‘t Hof1, M.G.N. Bos2,3,4, M. Straathof1, E.A. Crone3, E. Hoekzema1
ORCID iDs: S.R. van ‘t Hof, M.G.N. Bos, M. Straathof, E.A. Crone, E. Hoekzema
  1. Pregnancy Brain Lab, Amsterdam University Medical Center (AUMC), location University of Amsterdam, Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam Neuroscience, Amsterdam Reproduction and Development, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  2. Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands
  3. Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
  4. Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Institutions: Amsterdam University Medical Centers (Netherlands); University of Amsterdam (Netherlands); Amsterdam Neuroscience (Netherlands); Amsterdam Reproduction Development (Netherlands); Leiden University (Netherlands); Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands)
Journal: Research Square (preprint)
Dates: published online 7 April 2026
Type: Preprint
License: CC BY
Identifiers: DOI 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9235100/v1 · OpenAlex W7151543894
Open access: green, a free copy (OpenAlex)
Status: data only
Categories: human (organism), developmental (subfield)
Methods: Statistics, Smoothing, state filtering, decompositions, Connectivity
Topic: Menopause: Health Impacts and Treatments (Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Medicine), according to OpenAlex
Funding: European Research Council (948031)
Citations: not cited yet (Europe PMC); 35 references in the paper

Abstract

The female brain undergoes substantial reorganization during major hormonal transitions, yet whether puberty, pregnancy, and menopause engage shared or distinct neuroplastic mechanisms remains unknown. We conducted the first study comparing longitudinal structural brain changes across all three transitions using identical analytical methods (n=1292), with stable control groups to isolate transition-specific effects. Both pubertal girls transitioning through menarche and women transitioning to motherhood showed cortical gray matter reductions across the majority of examined regions, with cross-cohort comparisons confirming broad mostly convergence but also regional divergence across the cortex. The menopausal transition showed a fundamental divergence from both puberty and pregnancy, as women transitioning through menopause showed no accelerated volumetric loss, while stable pre- and postmenopausal control groups did. These findings demonstrate that puberty and pregnancy share a broadly convergent signature of cortical remodeling, while menopause represents a qualitatively distinct neuroplastic state defined by the absence rather than acceleration of volumetric change.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Code

The paper links to its data, not to its authors' code: see the Data section.

Tracing map

A tracing map links a paper to the code its authors published: this paper has none, so it has no map.

Data

Datasets cited

Data availability

The data used from the menopause cohort are available through the UK BioBank. For the pregnancy cohort, the raw MRI data along with the relevant variables and demographic information for the participants who have provided permission to share their data are provided in the Open Science Framework repository. These data have been deposited in the Open Science Framework repository under the following DOI: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/5MT8Z. For the pubertal cohort, research data of the BrainLinks cohort is uploaded to the Erasmus University Rotterdam’s Data Repository https://dataverse.nl/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.34894/CPARII and can be accessed by request.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Versions

The history of this record: each version stored by the harvester or made by a correction of its authors or of the maintainers of its code, and what changed in its facts. The texts of the paper (its abstract, its availability statements) are not part of it; versions that changed only those are not listed.

Version 1, 29 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, journal, dates, 5 authors, 1 funder, 35 references.

Cite

This paper

van ‘t Hof, S., Bos, M., Straathof, M., Crone, E., & Hoekzema, E. (2026). Structural Brain Changes Across the Female Lifespan: Puberty, Pregnancy, and Menopause Show Shared and Distinct Trajectories. Research Square (preprint). https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9235100/v1

BibTeX

@article{vanthof2026structural,
author = {van ‘t Hof, S.R. and Bos, M.G.N. and Straathof, M. and Crone, E.A. and Hoekzema, E.},
title = {{Structural Brain Changes Across the Female Lifespan: Puberty, Pregnancy, and Menopause Show Shared and Distinct Trajectories}},
journal = {Research Square (preprint)},
year = {2026},
month = apr,
publisher = {Research Square},
issn = {2693-5015},
doi = {10.21203/rs.3.rs-9235100/v1},
url = {https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9235100/v1}
}

RIS

TY - JOUR
AU - van ‘t Hof, S.R.
AU - Bos, M.G.N.
AU - Straathof, M.
AU - Crone, E.A.
AU - Hoekzema, E.
TI - Structural Brain Changes Across the Female Lifespan: Puberty, Pregnancy, and Menopause Show Shared and Distinct Trajectories
T2 - Research Square (preprint)
J2 - Res Sq
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/04/07
SN - 2693-5015
PB - Research Square
DO - 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9235100/v1
UR - https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9235100/v1
ER -

CSL-JSON

{
"id": "10.21203/rs.3.rs-9235100/v1",
"type": "article",
"title": "Structural Brain Changes Across the Female Lifespan: Puberty, Pregnancy, and Menopause Show Shared and Distinct Trajectories",
"container-title": "Research Square (preprint)",
"author": [
{
"family": "van ‘t Hof",
"given": "S.R."
},
{
"family": "Bos",
"given": "M.G.N."
},
{
"family": "Straathof",
"given": "M."
},
{
"family": "Crone",
"given": "E.A."
},
{
"family": "Hoekzema",
"given": "E."
}
],
"container-title-short": "Res Sq",
"DOI": "10.21203/rs.3.rs-9235100/v1",
"ISSN": "2693-5015",
"publisher": "Research Square",
"URL": "https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9235100/v1",
"issued": {
"date-parts": [
[
2026,
4,
7
]
]
}
}

Similar papers

The papers with a page that share the most with this one: the tools found in their code, their categories, datasets, cited references and authors, the rarest counting most.

[1] doi:10.1002/hbm.70608 [code]
Transient Elevation and Subsequent Normalization of Brain Age Gap During the Postpartum Period.
Journal: Human brain mapping
In common: 6 references
[2] doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2026.101738 [code]
Timing and tempo of puberty and neurodevelopment following adversity: A registered report.
Journal: Developmental cognitive neuroscience
In common: developmental, 4 references
[3] doi:10.1007/s00737-026-01707-0
Maternal depression symptoms as a context for longitudinal changes in the perinatal brain and infant emotion outcomes.
Journal: Archives of women's mental health
In common: 4 references
[4] doi:10.1038/s41380-026-03641-0
Cerebral cortical alterations in adolescent early-onset psychosis: a surface-based morphometry mega-analysis.
Journal: Molecular psychiatry
In common: developmental, 3 references
[5] doi:10.1038/s41398-026-04010-9 [code]
Bullying victimization and brain development: a longitudinal structural magnetic resonance imaging study from adolescence to early adulthood.
Journal: Translational psychiatry
In common: developmental, 3 references
[6] doi:10.1093/cercor/bhag034 [code]
Individual differences in adolescent cortical development are associated with neighborhood characteristics: Longitudinal findings from the ABCD study.
Journal: Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
In common: developmental, 3 references
[7] doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10509-4
Dopamine drives persistent remodelling of the maternal brain.
Journal: Nature
In common: 3 references
[8] doi:10.1038/s42003-026-09956-6 [code]
Linking changes in sulcal morphometry to cognitive development from childhood to adolescence.
Journal: Communications biology
In common: developmental, 2 references
[9] doi:10.1162/imag.a.1362 [code]
Human fMRI at 11.7T: Assessing feasibility, stability, and reliability on the Iseult scanner.
Journal: Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)
In common: 2 references
[10] doi:10.1002/dneu.70019 [code]
A Longitudinal Study of Children's Hippocampal Development: Investigating Maternal Physical Activity, Depression, and Education.
Journal: Developmental neurobiology
In common: developmental, 1 reference

Contribute

The authors of this paper can claim it, correct its record and validate its tracing map, and the maintainers of its code (its owner, or a public member of its organization) correct what it says of their repository; anyone signed in can ask for its removal. Every request goes to OSCR's own machine, which answers it; your account page follows them.

Sign in with ORCID to claim this paper as one of its authors, correct its record or validate its tracing map: when the paper's metadata lists your ORCID iD, you are recognized at once. Maintainers of its code: sign in with GitHub, then claim the repository on your account page.

Request its removal

To ask OSCR to remove this record, the copies of its authors' scripts or its tracing map, use the removal request page: signed in, you say who you are, what to remove and why, then review and confirm the request. Published rules decide every request (how).

Discussion, reproductions, activity

Discussion: questions and error reports about this paper and its code, from signed-in readers and its authors. It opens with sign-in.

Reproductions: reports from readers who ran the authors' code: what they reproduced, with which environment, commit and data. It opens with sign-in.

Activity: what happens around this paper: new versions of its record, its map's validation, discussions and reproductions. It opens with sign-in.