Karyn M. Frick, Ph.D.
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

2003 Investigator-Initiated Research Grant

Recent reports that hormone replacement therapy (typically a combination of estrogen and progestin) may not protect women against Alzheimer’s disease confirm the need for more basic research and animal studies in this area. Scientists remain interested in the role of estrogen in Alzheimer’s because there is evidence on a number of fronts that estrogen can help protect nerve cells, either directly or indirectly.

This research group is investigating whether the educational environment may affect the potential benefit of estrogen in memory and thinking functions. The researchers will use female mice as models of changes in female human cognition related to aging. They propose to determine (1) whether short-term exposure to an enriched learning environment during middle or old age influences the ability of estrogen treatment to alleviate age-related memory decline in female mice and (2) whether lifelong enrichment affects estrogen treatment in middle and old age.

Although enrichment of a learning environment in a mouse model cannot reproduce the complex elements of the human environment, these studies may suggest whether some environmental factors influence memory response to estrogen. The outcome of this research may contribute to the larger effort to clarify the potential efficacy of estrogen treatments.