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E149
July 21, 2026
The Ovary’s Job Doesn’t End at Menopause: A Top Neuroscientist Explains
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In this episode of unPAUSED, Dr. Mary Claire Haver talks with Dr. Jennifer Garrison, a neuroscientist and founder of the Global Consortium for Reproductive Longevity and Equality, about why the ovary should never have been labeled a purely reproductive organ. Dr. Garrison explains that ovaries function like a second brain in the body, sending and receiving chemical signals to nearly every tissue system including the heart, bones, brain, immune system, and metabolism. She walks through her research on the hypothalamus and the brain ovary signaling network, describing how inflammation in this part of the brain may be one of the earliest drivers of aging across the whole body.

The conversation covers why the ovary ages roughly two and a half times faster than the rest of the body, a gap that helps explain the health span difference between women and men. Dr. Garrison and Dr. Haver discuss how poor ovarian function shows up across a woman's life, not only at menopause, contributing to conditions like polycystic ovarian syndrome, infertility, early menopause, depression, metabolic disease, and autoimmune disease. They also unpack why autoimmune conditions rise sharply after menopause and why women's immune systems respond differently to viruses than men's.

Dr. Garrison shares striking numbers on how little biomedical research funding has gone toward understanding female physiology outside of pregnancy and cancer, including how recently the NIH began requiring female inclusion in preclinical studies. She and Dr. Haver compare research volume on menopause and perimenopause to the vast body of research on pregnancy, illustrating just how far behind the science remains.

Dr. Haver and Dr. Garrison get practical too, discussing why every woman should have a full cardiovascular workup by 40, why DEXA scans and body composition tracking matter for bone and muscle health, and why hormone therapy still relies on tools largely unchanged since the 1940s. Ovarian health, Dr. Garrison argues, is foundational to understanding aging and deserves far greater research investment beyond fertility, with real implications for how women navigate perimenopause, menopause, and midlife.

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Chapters

00:00:00 – Why Ovaries Matter Far Beyond Fertility 
00:01:39 – Stop Calling Ovaries "Reproductive Organs" 
00:05:08 – The Brain–Ovary Connection Explained 
00:09:05 – How Jennifer Garrison Changed Women's Health Research 
00:12:45 – Why Ovaries Control Whole-Body Health 
00:15:33 – The Hidden Signals Your Ovaries Send 
00:19:20 – Why Ovaries Age 2.5x Faster Than the Body 
00:27:30 – What Every Woman Should Test at 40 
00:34:10 – The Health Metrics Women Shouldn't Ignore 
00:37:10 – Why Women's Health Research Fell Behind 
00:40:35 – The Missing Science of Perimenopause 
00:48:45 – Where Women's Health Funding Really Goes 
00:52:10 – How We Can Finally Improve Women's Health 
00:57:10 – The First Map of the Aging Ovary 
01:00:00 – What the Future of Women's Health Looks Like

About the guest

Dr. Jennifer Garrison

Jennifer Garrison, PhD is a neuroscientist and entrepreneur working to close the gap between scientific discovery and real human impact, focusing on the historic absence of sex differences in research and medicine. She is co-founder and CEO of a company building a new model for bringing breakthroughs to market, starting with female health.

Earlier in her career, Dr. Garrison established the global scientific and funding infrastructure behind an emerging field that establishes ovarian function as a central driver of systemic health and aging. As founder and executive director of the ProductiveHealth Global Consortium and co-director of the Center for Healthy Aging in Women at the Buck Institute, where she also directed a research lab as a principal investigator, she led international efforts to fund and advance this work. Dr. Garrison also held faculty appointments at UCSF and USC. She developed the concept behind the winning XPRIZE for Ovarian Health and serves as an expert advisor to the National Menopause Foundation, the National Scientific Advisory Council for the American Federation for Aging Research, and is an elected member of the International Women’s Forum. Her work has been recognized with honors from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the American Federation for Aging Research, and the National Academy of Medicine. She is frequently cited in national media including TIME, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and WIRED. Through her work, Dr. Garrison seeks to redefine what modern medicine measures, funds, and treats.