Hippocampal formation volume, memory dysfunction, and cortisol levels in patients with Cushing's syndrome

Patients with chronic hypercortisolemia due to Cushing's syndrome (CS) exhibit cognitive dysfunction. Because glucocorticoid excess is associated with hippocampal damage in animals, and the hippocampus participates in learning and memory, we explored the relationships between hippocampal formation (HF) volume, memory dysfunction, and cortisol levels in 12 patients with CS. After magnetic resonance imaging, HF volume was determined using digital sum of track ball traces of dentate gyrus, hippocampus proper and subiculum, correcting for total intracranial volume. For 27% of the patients, HF volume fell outside the 95% confidence intervals for normal subject volume given in the literature. In addition, there were significant and specific correlations between HF volume and scores for verbal paired associate learning, verbal recall, and verbal recall corrected for full-scale IQ (r = 0.57 to 0.70, p < 0.05). HF volume was negatively correlated with plasma cortisol levels (r = -0.73, p < 0.05). These studies suggest an association between reduced HF volume, memory dysfunction, and elevated cortisol in patients with CS.