# Hormonal Contraceptives and Adolescent Brain Development

> **NIH NIH R21** · OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $192,059

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Hormonal contraceptives (HC) are used by 10 million people in the United States alone. While HC have played
an important role in revolutionizing women’s health, the impact of HC on the brain have not been well studied,
especially during adolescence when HC use often begins. There is a critical need for this knowledge as a
growing number of recent studies suggest that use of HC, specifically among adolescents, is associated with
subsequent antidepressant use, greater likelihood of developing depression, and increased suicide risk.
Adolescence is a critical period of hormone-mediated brain development. Among the brain regions with the most
significant maturational changes during adolescence is the prefrontal cortex (PFC), or medial prefrontal cortex
(mPFC) in rodents. Because of the extended period of PFC/mPFC development and its well-known role in
depression, our central hypothesis is that adolescent exposure to contraceptive hormones may exacerbate the
risk for mood dysregulation by perturbing normal PFC development. We will employ daily administration of
hormones commonly used in HC (ethinyl estradiol and levonorgestrel) to adolescent rats and examine
interrelated endocrine, brain, and behavioral endpoints of relevance to the mPFC. Particular domains of interest
in these studies include central steroid hormone levels and receptor expression (Aim 1), synaptic pruning and
microglia-synaptic interactions (Aim 2), and long-term programming of behavioral outcomes dependent on
mPFC, including stress coping and cognitive flexibility (Aim 3). The research proposed in this application is
innovative because it investigates a widely used pharmaceutical for which there is little known about its effects
on the brain during an important time of the female lifespan when the potential to shape the trajectory of neural
development is high. The proposed research is significant because it is expected to generate knowledge about
the effects of adolescent HC use on the female PFC. Ultimately, neuroscientific studies on HC will advance
women’s health research and are a much needed step in achieving our long term goal of advancing knowledge
of how sex specific factors influence the brain across the lifespan.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10818574
- **Project number:** 5R21HD109618-02
- **Recipient organization:** OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** BENEDETTA J LEUNER
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $192,059
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-04-01 → 2026-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10818574

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10818574, Hormonal Contraceptives and Adolescent Brain Development (5R21HD109618-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10818574. Licensed CC0.

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