Hormones like testosterone and estradiol can attach to your brain cells. A brain cell looks different from cells in other parts of the body: it has a cell body, but also has parts that look like wires sticking out. A brain cell often has many shorter "wires," called dendrites for receiving signals from other cells. These cells also have one longer "wire" called an axon, which sends signals to other cells.
There are two main ways that hormones can influence your brain cells.
First, hormones can influence how the brain is organized, and these are changes that take some time to occur. Changes in brain organization can include changes in the number of cells, or changes in the size and shape of dendrites or axons. Testosterone, for example, influences the development of new cells in a brain region called the medial amygdala. Because boys make more testosterone during puberty, this region becomes bigger in boys than girls. This was found in animal research, but studies on humans that looked at hormone levels and the size of the amygdala suggest it works the same in humans.

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