A new study from the University of California Los Angeles suggests that the birth control pill may thin areas in a woman’s brain.
The results of study involving 90 women were published in April in the journal “Human Brain Mapping”.
About half the women in the study were using the combination form of oral contraceptives and the rest were naturally cycling.
The research found that oral contraceptive use was significantly associated with a thinning in two areas of the brain: the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex.
The study is one of the first of its kind, as far as measuring effects of the birth control pill on brain structure.
Although the study only measured brain structure, the findings suggest that there could be possible effects on behaviour.