The Positive Effects of Estrogen as the 'Beneficial Middleman' for the Brain

Estrogen has been named as the middleman following its beneficial effect on the brain - a finding which raises hopes of developing drugs based on the beneficial action of this hormone.

A split-personality chemical, estrogen is thought to protect neural circuits and boost learning and memory, while at the same time increasing cancer risk when taken in high doses.

Estrogen � May Be a Good Therapy for Women Before They Turn 65
It might be a double blessing for those women who are on estrogen therapy before the age of 65.

In a new study, neuroscientists at USC and the Western University of Health Sciences show that estrogen sometimes acts through another chemical.

They conducted experiments on mice and verified that the hormone stimulates parts of the brain dedicated to learning and memory.

"We show very clearly that it does activate the same machinery that is activated during learning and memory," said Michel Baudry, professor of neurobiology at the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Immunity in Fish is Reduced by Estrogen Exposure
Exposure to estrogen reduces production of immune-related proteins in fish, according to new lab tests conducted by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey

However, the researchers also found that estrogen acts through calpain, a protein considered crucial to learning and memory since a seminal paper in 1984 by Baudry and Gary Lynch of the University of California, Irvine on the biochemistry of memory.

He said that estrogen acting through calpain does not work as a slowly diffusing hormone, but as a neurotransmitter with a more powerful and nearly immediate effect on the brain.

Stroke Risk and Estrogen Levels
It is now precisely 18 years since the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that it would sponsor a landmark study to examine women and cardiovascular disease.

He compared estrogen to adrenalin, a substance that acts like a hormone in most of the body but as a neurotransmitter in the brain.

"It's not a hormonal effect. It's a synaptic modulator. It completely changes the way we look at estrogen in the brain," said Baudry.

Researchers Find Estrogen Governs Genes That Affect Aggression
Ohio State University researchers have studied how a naturally occurring chemical in the bodies of mice affects aggressive behaviour in accordance with the length

The change may lead to better drugs against Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases, according to USC graduate student and lead author Sohila Zadran.

"Estrogen is critically involved in learning and memory," she said, and the study shows that its effects "critically involve calpain."

In the future, drug developers may choose to target calpain directly, which could possibly avoid the risks associated with hormone therapy.

The study was published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Source-ANI
SAV