Estrogenic regulation of memory: The first 50 years

This review highlights fifty years of progress in research on estradiol's role in regulating behavior(s). It was initially thought that estradiol was only involved in regulating estrus/menstrual cycles and concomitant sexual behavior, but it is now clear that estradiol also influences the higher order neural function of cognition. We provide a brief overview of estradiol's regulation of memory and some mechanisms which underlie its effects. Given systemically or directly into the hippocampus, to ovariectomized female rodents, estradiol or specific agonists, enhance learning and/or memory in a variety of rodent cognitive tasks. Acute (within minutes) or chronic (days) treatments enhance cognitive functions. Under the same treatment conditions, dendritic spine density on pyramidal neurons in the CA1 area of the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex increase which suggests that these changes are an important component of estrogen's ability to impact memory processes. Noradrenergic, dopaminergic and serotoninergic activity are also altered in these areas following estrogen treatments. Memory enhancements and increased spine density by estrogens are not limited to females but are also present in castrate males. In the next fifty years, neuroscientists need to determine how currently described neural changes mediate improved memory, how interactions among areas important for memory promote memory and the potential significance of neurally derived estrogens in normal cognitive processing. Answering these questions may provide significant advances for treatment of dementias as well as age and neuro-degenerative disease related memory loss.