Memory Loss During Pregnancy

Sharp, Katharine G; Brindle, Peter; Brown, Malcolm W.; Turner, Gillian

doi:10.1097/00006254-199309000-00002

Cited by 21 publications

(39 citation statements)

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“…2 For instance, explicit memory [3][4][5] and mood [4][5][6] deteriorate during pregnancy when progesterone and estradiol levels reach their highest physiological concentrations. Mood is also influenced by the more subtle changes in these hormone levels during the menstrual cycle.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Progesterone selectively increases amygdala reactivity in women

et al. 2007

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The acute neural effects of progesterone are mediated by its neuroactive metabolites allopregnanolone and pregnanolone. These neurosteroids potentiate the inhibitory actions of c-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Progesterone is known to produce anxiolytic effects in animals, but recent animal studies suggest that pregnanolone increases anxiety after a period of low allopregnanolone concentration. This effect is potentially mediated by the amygdala and related to the negative mood symptoms in humans that are observed during increased allopregnanolone levels. Therefore, we investigated with functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) whether a single progesterone administration to healthy young women in their follicular phase modulates the amygdala response to salient, biologically relevant stimuli. The progesterone administration increased the plasma concentrations of progesterone and allopregnanolone to levels that are reached during the luteal phase and early pregnancy. The imaging results show that progesterone selectively increased amygdala reactivity. Furthermore, functional connectivity analyses indicate that progesterone modulated functional coupling of the amygdala with distant brain regions. These results reveal a neural mechanism by which progesterone may mediate adverse effects on anxiety and mood.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Progesterone selectively increases amygdala reactivity in women

et al. 2007

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“…Data from our previous study of implicit memory across the lifespan [30] indicate a slight female advantage on CEG priming (P =0.06) and a significant advantage on conceptual explicit memory (see Appendix A). Conversely, studies of memory during pregnancy lead to the speculation that unusually high levels of sex steroid hormones may detrimentally affect performance on both explicit and implicit memory tests [5,7,23,42]. Pregnancy is characterized by dramatic hormonal fluctuations, including unusually high levels of estrogen, progesterone, oxytocin, and other hormones [15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pregnancy is characterized by dramatic hormonal fluctuations, including unusually high levels of estrogen, progesterone, oxytocin, and other hormones [15]. Pregnant women report [5,10,35,42] and demonstrate [6,26,42,47] impaired explicit memory for words (but see [5]). Studies of implicit memory in pregnancy provide less consistent results, even among studies using the same test of lexical implicit memory (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…word-stem completion). Two studies reported impairments among pregnant women [5,42], and two other studies found no difference between pregnant and nonpregnant women on the test [7,23]. Isolating and understanding the influence of estrogen on memory in pregnancy is difficult because the hormonal milieu is complex and fluctuates throughout pregnancy and the relation between estrogen levels and memory performance may be nonlinear.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Implicit memory varies across the menstrual cycle: estrogen effects in young women

2002

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Evidence that ovarian steroid hormones such as estrogen and progesterone affect cognition comes from studies of memory in older women receiving estrogen replacement therapy and studies of sexually dimorphic skills in young women across the menstrual cycle. Sixteen women (ages 18-28) completed tests of memory (implicit category exemplar generation, category-cued recall, implicit fragmented object identification) and sexually dimorphic skills (fine motor coordination, verbal fluency, mental rotations) at the early follicular (low estrogen and progesterone) and midluteal (high estrogen and progesterone) phases of the menstrual cycle. Performance on category exemplar generation, a test of conceptual implicit memory, was better at the midluteal than the follicular phase. In contrast, performance on a test of explicit memory, category-cued recall, did not vary across the menstrual cycle. At Session 1, women in the follicular phase performed better on the fragmented object identification task than did those in the midluteal phase. This unexpected finding suggests that high levels of ovarian hormones might inhibit perceptual object priming. Results confirmed previous reports of decreased mental rotations and improved motor skills and fluency in the midluteal phase. Estradiol levels correlated positively with verbal fluency and negatively with mental rotations and perceptual priming, which suggest that estrogen, and not progesterone, was responsible for the observed changes in cognition. Mood did not vary across the cycle phases. Overall, the findings suggest that estrogen may facilitate the automatic activation of verbal representations in memory.

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“…Pregnant women often report memory difficulties during pregnancy (Sharp, Brindle, Brown, & Turner, 1993) including forgetfulness, absentmindedness, difficulties in concentrating, and decreased attention. Although there is some objective research to support this claim, many studies that have investigated whether these subjective pregnancy related memory impairments reflect objective deficits have yielded inconsistent results.…”

Section: Memory During Pregnancymentioning

confidence: 99%