Learning process and hormones: Learning circuits in the brain may ebb and flow with the female reproductive cycle, driven by hormone-linked changes in the dopamine system, according to a mouse study published in Nature Neuroscience.
Researchers at New York University report that rising estrogen sharpened learning, apparently by boosting dopamine activity in the brain’s reward centre and strengthening reward signals. When estrogen signalling was suppressed, dopamine regulation faltered, and learning diminished.
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In the experiments, mice learned to use sound cues to predict water availability. Performance improved during higher-estrogen states, while overall cognitive activity unrelated to learning remained unchanged, pointing to a specific effect on reward-based learning rather than broad arousal or attention.
“There is a growing realisation that changes in estrogen relate to cognitive function and psychiatric disorders,” said senior author Christine Constantinople of NYU’s Center for Neural Science. “Yet we still know little about how hormones shape behaviour and neural activity.”
The findings offer a biological link between hormonal state and dopamine dynamics: natural estrogen levels predicted dopamine reuptake and reward-prediction-error signalling, the authors wrote, and directly influenced how prior rewards altered behaviour. That mechanism could help explain why symptoms of many neuropsychiatric disorders vary across hormonal phases, the team added. “Our results help bridge dopamine’s role with learning in ways that inform both health and disease,” said lead author Carla Golden.
