Endocrine Abstracts

Studies show men and women differ in their aptitude towards different cognitive tests, which may be attributable to hormonal differences. It has also been postulated that oestrogen has disease-assuaging properties in some mental illness. The aim of this study was to assess the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) as a tool for measuring cognitive differences between the sexes.A total of 43 volunteers, 20 women and 22 men, aged bet...

Novel object discrimination is a widely used ethologically relevant working memory task. However, there is little information regarding gender differences in performance of this test. The aim of this study was to compare the performance of male and female rats in this task following increasing intertrial intervals.Subjects were 24 female and 24 male adult hooded-Lister rats (250±10 g) group housed under standard laboratory conditions. Testing consis...

Background: The influence of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis is not limited to reproduction. Female sex steroids influence learning and memory and the neurobiology of brain regions involved in memory processing such as the hippocampus. Pregnancy allows overriding of regulatory feedback loops leading to elevation of endogenous serum hormone levels, depending on concentration; oestradiol can be either neurologically protective or toxic. This investigation aims to increas...