oral contraceptives | Neurotic Physiology

Women's Brains on Steroids?! WUT!?

Oct 04 2010 Published by scicurious under Behavioral Neuro, Neuroanatomy, Neuroscience

Sci got an email from one of her lovely readers recently about an article that appeared in Scientific American. I usually have a lot of respect for Scientific American, but I have to say I feel they really dropped the ball on this one. So today, I present to you: what Sci Am said, the REAL story, and WTF is up with that.

Let's take it from the top.

Women's Brains on Steroids: Birth control pills appear to remodel brain structure

wooOOOooo. That poor attractive girl with a confused look. Those big PILLS. Science is HARD, you guys. Hard and SCARY.

Are you scared yet? You should be.

11 responses so far

Basic Set: Female Reproduction 3, Oral Contraceptives

Feb 24 2010 Published by scicurious under Basic Science Posts

Continuing in our vein of basic science posts on female reproduction, we're going to take a bit of an aside (and this is VERY relevant for the paper that Sci wanted to blog about that needed so much background). We've covered the basic anatomy, the hormones, and the monthly cycle. But what about...when you don't want to ovulate?

What about oral contraceptives?

Of course, they aren't all oral anymore. Now we've got the patch and the ring, and I'm sure pretty soon we'll some sort of nasal insert (maybe something that looks like a nose ring?) for those who cannot be bothered with either a patch or a ring, let alone a pill.

So what about these?
the Pill
the pill.png

the Patch
the patch.png
(I do seriously hope they make the patch in darker tones than that. I do not think it would be hard to make a patch that actually matches your skin tone, so I really hope they market them)

the Ring

Heh. Ooops.
the ring.png

(on the other hand, if you wanna make me a birth control absorbed through the skin that can be worn as a RING, and make it to look like the One Ring, I WILL wear it. Drug companies, take note.)

So, remember this?
menstrual cycle2.jpg