HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 12, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Those memory lapses many women notice around menopause are real, and they can begin at a relatively young age, researchers report.
It’s common for women going through menopause to complain of what researchers sometimes call ” brain fog” — forgetfulness, and difficulty concentrating and thinking clearly.
And while those complaints are subjective, a number of studies have also shown they can be objectively detected.
Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston said the new study builds on that objective evidence.
It found that, yes, a woman’s performance on certain memory tasks tends to dip as her estrogen levels drop — and it happens during the average age range of menopause: 45 to 55. Menopause is defined as when a woman’s menstrual period stops, confirmed when she has missed her period for 12 consecutive months.
What’s more, those hormone levels are related to activity in the hippocampus, a brain region key in memory processing.
Based on past studies, up to 60 percent of women report memory issues as they go through menopause, said Julie Dumas, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont.
The new findings shed more light on what is happening in the brain during those hormonal shifts, according to Dumas, who was not involved in the study.
“There really is something going on in the brain,” she said. “You’re not crazy.”
The study findings were based on 200 women and men aged 45 to 55. Researchers used standard tests to gauge people’s memory skills, along with functional MRI scans to track their brain activity as they performed one of the memory tasks.
On average, the study found, women with lower levels of estradiol did worse on memory tests. Estradiol is a form of estrogen produced by the ovaries.
And overall, postmenopausal women showed a different pattern of activity in the brain’s hippocampus, compared to women who were premenopausal or going through the transition.
Again, estradiol levels seemed key: Lower levels meant “more pronounced” changes in brain activity.
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