Read this recent Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can arti­cle show­ing clearly how the brain can change based on our daily expe­ri­ences and actions:

… a new study in the jour­nal Brain Research demon­strates that […] birth con­trol pills have struc­tural effects on regions of the brain that gov­ern higher-order cog­ni­tive activities

… Whereas the sub­tle struc­tural effects of naturally-occurring steroid hor­mones and sex dif­fer­ences in the brain have been exten­sively stud­ied, few stud­ies have exam­ined the role of syn­thetic hor­mones on changes in the human brain.  What hap­pens, then, when the female brain gets a sig­nif­i­cant and arti­fi­cial dose of steroid hor­mone, either prog­es­terone, estro­gen or both? […] It appears that the brain, that sen­si­tive organ replete with steroid recep­tors, reacts to its hor­monal milieu with star­tling struc­tural modifications.

Com­ments: The study com­pared the brains of men, women cycling nat­u­rally and women tak­ing the pill. Struc­tural dif­fer­ences in spe­cific areas were found a) between men’s and women’s brains, b) between the brains of women cycling nat­u­rally when observed at dif­fer­ent moments of their cycle, and c) between the brains of women cycling nat­u­rally and those of women tak­ing the pill. Over­all the study points out that hor­mones can affect brain struc­tures via neu­ro­plas­tic­ity, the abil­ity of the brain to change. Since no cog­ni­tive mea­sures were used it is not pos­si­ble to know whether any of these struc­tural changes  alter our per­for­mance at all. There is no evi­dence so far as to whether these struc­tural chances are bad or good.

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