A Beneficial Effect of Estrogen on Working Memory in Postmenopausal Women Taking Hormone Replacement Therapy

• Published in: Hormones and behavior Vol. 38; no. 4; pp. 262 - 276
• Main Authors: Duff, Sarah J., Hampson, Elizabeth
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Inc 01-12-2000; Elsevier
• Subjects: Affect; Age Factors; Biological and medical sciences; Cross-Sectional Studies; Estradiol - administration & dosage; estrogen; Estrogen Replacement Therapy; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; hormone replacement therapy; Human; Humans; Learning. Memory; Memory; Memory, Short-Term - drug effects; Memory, Short-Term - physiology; menopause; Middle Aged; Postmenopause - physiology; prefrontal cortex; Prefrontal Cortex - physiology; Progesterone - administration & dosage; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Space Perception - drug effects; Verbal Learning - drug effects; Wechsler Scales; working memory; hormone replacement therapy; estrogen; menopause; working memory; prefrontal cortex; Human; Replacement therapy; Central nervous system; Estrogen; Cognition; Prefrontal cortex; Experimental study; Ovarian hormone; Verbal memory; Acquisition process; Problem solving; Female; Working memory; Sex steroid hormone; Brain (vertebrata); Spatial memory
• ISSN: 0018-506X; 1095-6867
• DOI: 10.1006/hbeh.2000.1625

Recent neurophysiological data suggest that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) may be susceptible to modulation by estrogen. In humans, the PFC mediates a number of cognitive processes that contribute to memory function, particularly working memory. The present study examined whether memory tasks that recruit PFC-dependent information processing might exhibit estrogen sensitivity in women. Performance on several memory tasks, including measures of working memory, was evaluated in three groups of postmenopausal women: (1) women who were tested when taking estrogen only (n = 38, Mage = 55.1 years), (2) women who were tested when taking estrogen and a progestin concurrently (n = 23, Mage = 55.9 years), and (3) women who were not taking hormone replacement therapy (n = 35, Mage = 56.0 years). Estrogen users exhibited significantly better performance on a verbal task and on a spatial task, each with a prominent working memory component, but did not differ from nonusers on control tasks involving simple passive recall. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that estrogen is active within PFC and is capable of influencing functions dependent on this region. The results of this study raise the possibility that estrogen may play a role in maintaining certain frontal lobe functions in women.