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Hormone replacement therapy may protect menopausal women from stress-related memory loss. The sex hormone estrogen buffers working memory from the impact of stress, which is known to impair short-term working memory. Women going through menopause take hormone replacement therapy HRT which contains estrogen to offset hot flushes, night sweats, sleep disturbances, mood swings, and reduced sex drive. The treatment also blocks fluctuating hormones from affecting memory.
Estrogen can modify women’s hormonal response to stress, researchers discovered that the treatment after menopause protects working memory needed for short-term cognitive tasks from the effects of stress. Stress prompts the hormonal system and the hypothalamus to release cortisol. Cortisol interferes with the activity of the hippocampus from making new neurons and neural connections, a process that is key to working memory.
HRT may reduce the response and cortisol, when there are environmental or immune system stressors. Stress can interference with prefrontal cognitive processes such as working memory.
HRT can reduce the HPA response to stress, the hormone may also mitigate the effects of stress on working memory by limiting the cortisol response to the stressor. Researchers examined different study participants, some received estrogen therapy for menopausal symptoms and others received a placebo for five years. The women provided saliva samples so their levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress, was measured.
During two separate sessions, each woman completed a memory task where they were instructed to remember the final word of each sentence. Prior to one of the sessions, the women submerged their non-dominant hand in ice water for as long as possible, for a maximum of three minutes. During the other session, the women submerged the same hand in warm water before completing the memory test.
Although the women who were receiving estrogen therapy reported feeling more stressed by the cold water exposure than the women who received the placebo, they had lower levels of cortisol than their counterparts following the stress test. Women receiving HRT performed about the same on the memory task, regardless of whether they were exposed. sed to the cold water stressor in advance or not. Women who were taking the placebo performed worse on the memory task because of exposure to the cold water than they did when they were not exposed to a physical stressor.
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