Interactive effects of estrogen and serotonin on brain activation during working memory and affective processing in menopausal women

PSYCHONEUROENDOCRINOLOGY

卷:37

Article

Epperson, C. Neill^1,2,3  Amin, Zenab³ 

[1] Univ Penn, Penn Ctr Womens Behav Wellness, Perelman Sch Med, Dept Psychiat, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA

[2] Univ Penn, Dept Obstet & Gynecol, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA

[3] Yale Univ, Dept Psychiat, New Haven, CT 06520 USA

关键词: Menopause;    Estrogen;    Working memory;    Affect;    Tryptophan depletion;    Serotonin;    Functional magnetic resonance imaging;    fMRI;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.07.007

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

While cognitive changes and mood instability are frequent symptoms reported by menopausal women, the degree to which the decline in estrogen production is responsible is not yet clear. Several lines of evidence suggest that estrogen may produce its effects on cognition and mood through modulation of serotonergic function. To test this hypothesis, we used the tryptophan depletion (TD) paradigm to lower central serotonin levels and pharmacologically manipulated estrogen levels in healthy menopausal women. We examined the individual and combined effects of estradiol and serotonin on working memory, emotion processing and task-related brain activation. Eight healthy predominantly early postmenopausal women underwent TD or sham depletion followed by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) both before and after short-term transdermal estradiol 75-150 mu g/d administration. There was an estradiol treatment by TD interaction for brain activation during performance on both the N-back Task (working memory) and Emotion Identification Task (affective processing). During the 2-back condition, TD attenuated activation prior to, but not after, estradiol treatment in the right and left dorsal lateral prefrontal and middle frontal/cingulate gyrus. During emotion identification, TD heightened activation in the orbital frontal cortex and bilateral amygdala, and this effect was attenuated by estradiol treatment. These results provide preliminary evidence that serotonergic effects directly mediate the impact of estrogen on brain activation during working memory and affective processing. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

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