Menopause can cause some women to forget words mid-sentence because of complex changes in brain chemistry and function driven primarily by fluctuating hormone levels, especially estrogen and progesterone. These hormonal shifts affect brain areas responsible for memory, attention, and language processing, leading to what is commonly called “menopause brain fog.”
During menopause, estrogen levels fluctuate and eventually decline. Estrogen plays a crucial role in modulating neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, and glutamate, which are essential for cognitive functions like working memory, attention, and verbal fluency. When estrogen drops, the communication between the prefrontal cortex (which handles executive functions like planning and word retrieval) and the hippocampus (which is key for memory formation) becomes less efficient. This disruption can cause difficulty in quickly finding the right words, resulting in pauses or forgetting words mid-sentence.
Progesterone also declines during menopause, reducing levels of its metabolite allopregnanolone, which normally enhances GABA activity—the brain’s calming neurotransmitter system. Lower GABA activity can lead to increased anxiety, irritability, and poor sleep quality. Since deep and REM sleep stages are critical for memory consolidation and cognitive clarity, disrupted sleep further impairs the brain’s ability to process and retrieve words smoothly.
Additionally, menopause often brings about hot flashes and night sweats, which fragment sleep and increase stress hormone (cortisol) levels. Elevated cortisol can bias brain function toward the amygdala, the center for emotional responses, at the expense of the prefrontal cortex’s control over attention and memory. This imbalance makes it harder to focus and retrieve words quickly.
Other factors contributing to word-finding difficulties include fluctuations in blood sugar and insulin, which affect the brain’s energy supply and can create “noise” in attention networks. Women with pre-existing conditions like ADHD may experience more pronounced symptoms because their neurotransmitter systems are already vulnerable.
The experience of forgetting words mid-sentence is part of a broader pattern of cognitive symptoms during menopause, including trouble concentrating, misplacing items, and difficulty initiating tasks. These symptoms are usually temporary and do not indicate permanent brain damage or dementia. They reflect the brain’s response to hormonal and physiological changes during the menopause transition, which typically lasts several years.
In summary, menopause-induced word-finding problems arise from hormonal fluctuations disrupting neurotransmitter balance, brain region connectivity, sleep quality, and stress regulation. These changes collectively impair the brain’s ability to maintain smooth verbal processing and memory retrieval, causing women to occasionally forget words mid-sentence.
