ArticleHuman brain mapping2020
Women's brain aging: Effects of sex-hormone exposure, pregnancies, and genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease.
Article in Human brain mapping, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed, 91 citations in OpenAlex.
- Air pollution is associated with sex-specific longitudinal changes in astrocytic and neuroinflammatory processes linked to cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease at-risk individuals.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Observational
- Sex and Gender Differences in Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior, and Sleep During Traumatic Brain Injury Recovery: A Narrative Review.European journal of sport science · 2026Review
- Associations between serum estradiol and estrone and Alzheimer's disease biomarkers: An analysis in female participants from the European Prevention of Alzheimer's Dementia Longitudinal Cohort Study (EPAD LCS).Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Article
- Steroid hormones in Alzheimer's disease: a molecular analysis of blood and cerebrospinal fluid.Alzheimer's research & therapy · 2026Article
- APOE4 negates the effects of ovarian hormones on cerebrovascular endothelial and mitochondrial function.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
- Review
- Women's reproductive factors predict local brain aging profiles mapped using deep neural networks.GeroScience · 2026Article
- The progression of sex differences in brain networks across the lifespan.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Menopausal hormone therapy and risk of neuropsychiatric disease: a drug target Mendelian randomisation study.npj women's health · 2026Article
- Age at natural menopause, reproductive lifespan and Alzheimer's disease in females: is APOE ε4 the missing link?Frontiers in genetics · 2026Article
- Exploring biomarkers of neurodegenerative risk: associations of oxysterols, sex hormones, and reproductive characteristics in older women.Journal of lipid research · 2025Article
- The Influence of Sex and Sex-Steroid Hormones on Cerebellar Structure and Functional Connectivity Across Adulthood.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Cardiovascular contributions to dementia: Examining sex differences and female-specific factors.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2025Review
- APOE4 triggers dysregulated synaptic vesicle release by disrupting SNARE complex assembly.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2025Article
- One size does not fit all: how type of menopause and hormone therapy matters for brain health.The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science · 2025Review
- Article
- A Case for estradiol: younger brains in women with earlier menarche and later menopause.GigaScience · 2025Article
- Accelerated midlife endocrine and bioenergetic brain aging in APOE4 females.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2025Article
- Linking menopause-related factors, history of depression, APOE ε4, and proxies of biological aging in the UK biobank cohort.Hormones and behavior · 2024Article
- Hormone therapy is associated with lower Alzheimer's disease tau biomarkers in post-menopausal females -evidence from two independent cohorts.Alzheimer's research & therapy · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 1 institution in 5 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Sex hormones such as estrogen fluctuate across the female lifespan, with high levels during reproductive years and natural decline during the transition to menopause. Women's exposure to estrogen may influence their heightened risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) relative to men, but little is known about how it affects normal brain aging. Recent findings from the UK Biobank demonstrate less apparent brain aging in women with a history of multiple childbirths, highlighting a potential link between sex-hormone exposure and brain aging. We investigated endogenous and exogenous sex-hormone exposure, genetic risk for AD, and neuroimaging-derived biomarkers for brain aging in 16,854 middle to older-aged women. The results showed that as opposed to parity, higher cumulative sex-hormone exposure was associated with more evident brain aging, indicating that i) high levels of cumulative exposure to sex-hormones may have adverse effects on the brain, and ii) beneficial effects of pregnancies on the female brain are not solely attributable to modulations in sex-hormone exposure. In addition, for women using hormonal replacement therapy (HRT), starting treatment earlier was associated with less evident brain aging, but only in women with a genetic risk for AD. Genetic factors may thus contribute to how timing of HRT initiation influences women's brain aging trajectories.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.