Women who take birth control pills are prying with the means they remember any information. According to experts, women who take oral birth contraceptives are likely to remember diverse aspects of an event from those having normal menstrual cycles. The oral contraceptives by altering hormone balance of women, changes the way they remember things.
To analyze the fact that whether taking birth control pill altered the women recalled incidents, researchers from the University of California recruited conscripted seventy-two women. The study participants were taking either oral contraceptive to prevent pregnancy or rely on natural menstrual cycles.
All the study subjects were shown pictures of mother, son and car accidents and they made listened an audio describing the sequence of incidents differently. For the first group the car had hit a curb, while women in the second group were told that the car had hit the boy and injured him.
After continuous follow-up study participants were required to describe the sequence of events again. The study showed that women taking pill had an enhanced memory of the overall idea of the images, while the women who did not take pills recalled details of the tale better.
According to Larry Cahill, a neurobiologist who worked on the study, the contraceptive pill works by diminishing levels of oestrogen and progesterone to prevent pregnancy. These so called left brain chemicals have been associated with ability of women to remember incidents logically. The most exciting thing about this study is that it shows that use of hormonal contraception alters memory.
The study highlighted a crucial link. There are only a handful of studies investigating the cognitive effects of the pill and more than one hundred million women use it worldwide, stated study co-author Shawn Nielsen. The study was published in the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory journal. It raises questions over how the Pill, may affect women’s’ performance at work.