RESEARCH · HEALTH · EQUITY

Spiking
Hormonal
Intelligence

Embracing individual change.
Advancing health equity.

Why are my menopause symptoms so strong — and how can I manage them?

Could I have known
about my risk for postpartum
depression earlier?

Why does my birth control pill affect my mood so much — and is there a better option for me?

Are my testosterone levels where they should be — and could they explain how I feel?

Why does PMS hit me
so much harder than others?
What can I do about it?

Could hormone therapy
have prevented my
depressive symptoms?

Swipe to explore all questions

Do any of these questions feel familiar?

Help us find the right answers

The mental
health crisis

More than one in five people experience mental illness.
Long waiting times for treatment are common, healthcare systems are under growing pressure, and the economic costs are substantial.

Mental healthcare remains largely reactive, even though signs of vulnerability may be detectable long before a diagnosis — potentially years earlier, if we know what to look for.

What if we could recognize risk and start prevention earlier than ever?

Hormones are messengers.
We should listen.

We believe one place to look is hormonal change.

Hormones are small signaling molecules that are often overlooked, but their effects on the brain can be huge. They shape how we feel, think, and respond to our environment — and people respond to hormonal change very differently.

Those individual responses can tell us something important about vulnerability and resilience. During puberty, menstrual cycles, pregnancy, postpartum, menopause, and andropause, hormonal change can reveal mental-health risk long before it would otherwise become obvious.

Rethinking research around individual change

Mental health depends on many factors, and hormones are an important part of the equation. Every brain is different, and so are people’s responses to hormonal change. Prevention needs to take those differences into account. That is a huge challenge.

HII takes on that challenge — but to do so, we need to rethink research. Instead of treating individual change as something to control for, we study it as a source of information.

By connecting individual risks across time, we aim to uncover what drives vulnerability — and build the foundation for more individualized prevention.

Better prevention.
The path to health equity

Mental-health risks are not distributed equally across the population. Women, gender-diverse, and neurodiverse people are particularly affected. We need to understand why.

What if we could all live with the same sense of security? Imagine what we could achieve.

By using Hormonal Intelligence to recognize risk earlier and strengthen prevention, we aim to create a future of greater equality. That is our vision. Mental health is not only essential for individual wellbeing — it is the foundation for physical health, participation, productivity, and equal opportunity.

Support the vision
Our research programmes → Meet the team →

News

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Funding
23 Jul 2026
Hormonal Intelligence Initiative joins the MenoBrain consortium
HII has officially joined the MenoBrain consortium and will host two PhD students as part of the Horizon Europe-funded doctoral network.
logo
Announcement
05 Jun 2026
New research initiative on hormones, brain, and mental health
We are pleased to announce the launch of the Hormonal Intelligence Initiative, a new research initiative dedicated to advancing integrative, sex- and gender-sensitive research on hormones, brain, cognition, and mental health across the life course.
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Events

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23
Oct
Scientific Launch
23 October 2026