Dr. Louise Newson

Every so often it gets really messy and the branches are sort of in a bit of a mess and you have to prune them back.

and then they grow better.

And so the nerves have something called a nerve, it's like a growth factor for the nerves.

And guess what stimulates those growth factors?

Of course, our hormones.

So our hormones are very good for this dendritic pruning, if you like.

And again, that's so important, this rewiring, this remodeling, reducing inflammation in our brain, helping those nervous pathways to work really well.

And I've spent a lot of time writing about that because there's always this confusion.

And I know you've mentioned it on the podcast before about dementia.

Does HRT reduce or worsen dementia risk?

And everyone's really confused.

So in my mind, if I'm confused, I go back to basics.

So again, if you learn how these hormones work within our brain,

then you can join the dots and think, well, without those hormones, we're going to have more inflammation.

We'll have less clear nerve pathways.

The neurons won't fire so quickly.

So of course it's going to slow down our brain.

Of course our brain isn't going to work as well.

Do you see what I mean?

So I'm sort of coming at it from a...