Differential effects of estrogen on hippocampal- and striatal-dependent learning

Estrogen's role in learning and memory may be to predispose animals to use specific cognitive strategies (Korol & Kolo, 2002). Specifically, estrogen may facilitate hippocampal-dependent learning, while at the same time attenuate striatal-dependent learning. As a stringent test of this hypothesis, place or response learning on an eight-arm radial maze was compared between ovariectomized (OVX) female Long-Evans rats and rats with chronic estrogen replacement (OVX+E; 5mg 17-beta estradiol 60-day release tablet). Reference and working memory errors were monitored separately for both place and response learning tasks. OVX+E rats learned the place task significantly faster than the response task, and faster than OVX rats. OVX rats required fewer days to reach criterion on the response task than OVX+E rats. Estrogen selectively enhanced reference memory performance, but only during place learning. The specific pattern of estrogen effects on learning suggests that future studies include verification of cognitive strategies used by animals.