Estrogen affects all of these aspects of brain anatomy, both directly and indirectly. It stimulates the growth of neurons and synapses, and it increases plasticity, the brain’s remarkable ability to adapt and change.21 It turns out that estrogen receptors are located throughout the brain, especially in the hippocampus and other areas involved in learning and memory.22 Neuroscientists such as Elizabeth Gould, who is now at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, have found that estrogen affects the brain mechanisms involved in memory, aging, and degenerative diseases
