According to a latest research by Canadian scientists high estrogen levels are associated with an inability to pay attention and learn. Researchers at the Concordia University in Montreal conducted this study to assess the link between estrogen and memory and learning. The study was published in the journal Brain and Cognition.
Lead researcher Wayne Brake, a professor at the university's Centre for Studies in Behavioural Neurobiology said, “Although estrogen is known to play a significant role in learning and memory, there has been no clear consensus on its effect… Our findings, using a well-established model of learning called latent inhibition, shows conclusively that high estrogen levels inhibit the cognitive ability in female rodents.” Translated to humans it means that women, when they have high estrogen levels while they are ovulating may interfere with her ability to pay attention. Co-author Matthew Quinlan said, “The similarity between human studies and our findings suggest that we have a good model for human learning… Rodent research is invaluable to us. We can tease out the real contributors and their respective roles in these systems. It is much more difficult to conduct comparable experiments in humans.”
For the study the laboratory rats received a pre-exposure phase during which they were repeatedly exposed to a tone, with no consequence. Once they became used to this tone and ignored it, the test dynamics changed and another stimulus (like food or pain stimulus) was linked to the tone. Rats with low levels of estrogen quickly learned that the tone was associated with the new stimulus whereas those with higher levels of estrogen took longer to form this memory. This was seen only in adult female rats. According to Brake, “This and our other findings indicate that estrogen directly effects the brain, perhaps by interfering with brain signalling molecules…Our study helps clear up the controversy about the effects of estrogen, the next step is to look at how this occurs.”
According to Dr. Laura Corio, an Obstetric and gynecologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City these findings are similar to what she sees in her patients. “In pregnancy, women are exposed to high levels of estrogen throughout…Women tell me they feel ‘spacy’ [and] 50 percent efficient, and hope their brains will return to normal after the pregnancy ends. I am not surprised about the findings.”
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