HORMONE REPLACEMENT EFFECTS ON FRONTAL LOBE FUNCTION

记忆力丧失是健康老年人的主要抱怨之一。最近的证据表明，伴随绝经的荷尔蒙变化可能是老年女性记忆丧失的部分原因，这些记忆影响可以通过使用激素替代疗法(HRT)来缓解。这些认知益处的机制仍不清楚。用于解释认知老化现象的两个主要神经心理学假说表明，额叶缺陷或内侧颞叶缺陷可能参与了HRT记忆效应。目前的项目将探索HRT记忆增强是否更好地被描述为额叶功能改变的继发性，而不是内侧颞叶功能的改变。除了检查HRT对记忆的影响外，拟议的研究还将调查正常的与年龄相关的记忆障碍。具体地说，从具有代表性的社区样本中提取的健康绝经后女性，她们接受了长期的HRT，并与从未使用HRT的年龄匹配的对照组进行了比较，这些女性与年轻的绝经前女性进行了识别记忆任务的比较。为了更好地解离荷尔蒙替代疗法调节记忆功能的神经机制，在记忆任务期间，将记录头皮部位的事件相关脑电位(ERPs)。此外，被认为可以挖掘额叶和内侧颞叶功能的神经心理测量将被收集起来，并与记忆的行为和电生理指标相关联，作为额叶和内侧颞叶受累之间分离的汇聚证据。总体而言，这项工作将作为一种手段，更好地阐明与HRT和衰老相关的记忆变化类型，并提供与使用HRT的绝经后妇女报告的记忆影响相关的大脑行为关联的初步检查。

Memory loss is one of the main complaints among healthy elders. Recent evidence suggests that hormonal changes accompanying menopause may partly account for memory-loss in aging women and that these memory effects can be tempered by the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT). The mechanism of these cognitive benefits remains unclear. Two major neuropsychological hypotheses used to account for cognitive aging phenomena suggest that either frontal lobe deficits or medial temporal lobe deficits may be involved in the HRT memory effects. The current project will explore whether HRT memory enhancement is better characterized as secondary to a change in frontal lobe, as opposed to medial temporal lobe, function. In addition to examining the effects of HRT on memory, the proposed studies will also investigate normal age- associated memory impairment. Specifically, healthy postmenopausal women drawn from a representative community sample who have undergone long-term HRT and age-matched controls who have never used HRT will be compared to younger premenopausal women on a recognition memory task. To dissociate better the neural mechanisms by which HRT modulates memory function, event- related brain potentials (ERPs) will be recorded from 64 scalp sites during the memory task. Further, neuropsychological measures thought to tap frontal and medial temporal lobe function will be collected and correlated with behavioral and electrophysiological indices of memory as convergent evidence for the dissociation between frontal and medial temporal lobe involvement. Overall, this work will serve as a means to better elucidate the type of memory changes associated with HRT and aging and to provide an initial examination of brain-behavior associations related to the memory effects reported in HRT-using postmenopausal women.