Contraceptive Pill "Changes The Way Women Remember"

A wide-reaching study into the effects of the contraceptive Pill has been carried out by scientists at the UCI in America. Previous research has focused on the possible links between the Pill and the likelihood of developing or not developing certain cancers and blood clots. This research has focused on a rather different aspect: the effect of taking the Pill on the brain and memory.

One of the main findings was that taking the Pill causes women to remember things differently to those women who do not take the Pill. Women who take the Pill remember events in terms of the emotional impact they had, rather than on the details of the event itself.

The researchers presented women (some of whom were on the Pill and some who were not) with details of a car crash that involved a mother and a son. The women on the Pill remembered the basic details – like that there was an accident, that the boy had been taken to the hospital and treated – but the women not on the Pill remembered far more detail, such as that there was a fire hydrant next to the car, for example. However, the women on the Pill were much clearer on the emotional impact of the event than the others.

Women not using them remembered more details, such as a fire hydrant next to the car.

One of the researchers, Shawn Nielsen, said “It’s a change in the type of information they remember, not a deficit. What’s most exciting about this study is that it shows the use of hormonal contraception alters memory. There are only a handful of studies examining the cognitive effects of the pill, and more than 100 million women use it worldwide.”

Neuro-biologist and researcher Larry Cahill, explained that the possible reason for the findings was that the hormones oestrogen and progesterone (that are suppressed by the Pill) are linked to the ‘left brain’ memory (that which focuses on language). So if the hormones are suppressed by the Pill, the ‘right brain’ memory and processing (which is more emotional) kicks in to a greater extent.

The researchers stress that taking the Pill does not damage memory, it just changes its focus.