Elle Murata is a PhD candidate in neuroscience at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she works in the Cognitive Neuroendocrinology Lab with Dr. Emily Jacobs. Her research uses neuroimaging to examine how disruptions to the endocrine system, including hormonal contraception, endometriosis, and menopause, shape brain structure and cognitive function. Across diverse study designs and populations, her work is unified by the central premise that endocrine rhythms are fundamental organizers of brain health. She earned her BA in Neuroscience from Middlebury College and previously worked in Clinical Endocrinology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital before beginning her doctoral training.
Abstract: Neurobiological signatures of endometriosis: characterizing pain, cognition, and brain morphology
Endometriosis affects approximately 1 in 10 women, yet its impact on the brain remains poorly understood. Traditionally approached as a gynecological condition, endometriosis is increasingly recognized as a systemic disorder with broad physiological and psychological consequences. It has been classified not only as a reproductive disorder, but also as inflammatory, metabolic, and chronic pain-related in nature. Individuals with endometriosis report lower quality of life and increased risk of developing major depression and anxiety. Despite this strong evidence linking endometriosis and mental health, the neural basis of these associations remains largely unexplored. Here, we investigated the impact of endometriosis on brain health. We enrolled women with confirmed endometriosis (n = 60) and age-matched healthy controls (n = 60) who completed biofluids, questionnaires, neuropsychological testing, and multimodal MRI. Compared to controls, participants with endometriosis reported higher anxiety, depression, and pain scores and had poorer performance on select cognitive assessments. No overall group differences in global brain morphology were observed. However, within the endometriosis group, greater pain severity was significantly associated with reduced gray matter volume and greater white matter microstructure in pain-relevant regions (e.g. anterior cingulate, corticospinal tracts). These findings suggest that endometriosis is not marked by uniform alterations in brain structure, but rather that pain severity is linked to neural differences in regions critical for pain modulation. By situating endometriosis within the broader context of women’s brain health, this work bridges clinical symptoms with neurobiological mechanisms and highlights the central role of pain in shaping neural structure.