Neuroendocrinology, as practiced by me, Alan Jacobs, MD, concerns the interactions between hormones and the brain, primarily how hormones affect behavior.   A large number of the women that I treat have catamenial epilepsy. For these women, seizures are occurring at specific, predictable times during their menstrual cycles and are resistant to treatment by standard antiepileptic medications.   Other disorders I treat include perimenopausal seizure exacerbation, complications arising when menopausal women with epilepsy want to use hormone replacement therapy without increasing their seizure frequency, seizures beginning in young women during menarche, and women and men whose epilepsy (usually temporal lobe epilepsy) or even their anti-seizure medication, provokes reproductive disorders.   Many patients have developed memory problems, concentration problems, mood changes or anxiety and irritability during the menopausal transition or premenstrually, sometimes in the setting of some other neurological or endocrinological condition, e.g. a past traumatic brain injury or thyroid gland dysfunction.   Other patients have signs of elevated testosterone due to congenital adrenal hyperplasia combined with anxiety disorders refractory to standard pharmacologic interventions.   I also take care of people who have hypothalamic or pituitary gland lesions, with resulting hormonal changes, which affect cognition and/or behavior.   Neuroendocrinology.org © 2005. All rights reserved.