Scene memory and hippocampal volume in middle-aged women with early hormone loss

The present study explored whether early midlife bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (BSO), a female-specific risk factor for dementia, is associated with reduced medial temporal lobe structure and function. Younger middle-aged women with the BRCA1/2 mutation and a BSO prior to spontaneous menopause (SM) were recruited. We determined the performance of women with BSO not taking estradiol-based hormone therapy (n = 18) on a task measuring object and scene recognition and quantified medial temporal lobe subregion volumes using manually segmented high-resolution T2-weighted MRI scans. Comparisons were made to those with BSO taking estradiol-based hormone therapy (n = 20), age-matched premenopausal controls (n = 28), and older women in SM not taking hormone therapy matched for duration of hormone deprivation (n = 17). Reduced hippocampal integrity specific to the BSO group not taking hormone therapy was observed, reflected by significantly smaller dentate gyrus/CA2/CA3 volumes and lower scene recognition memory performance. These findings show that hippocampal subfield volume may be useful for identifying early midlife changes in women at elevated risk for dementia.