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Wednesday, October 30, 2002Led by Gary Wenk of the University of Arizona at Tucson, the team surgically removed the ovaries of rats to induce menopause. The loss of the ovaries also affected the hypothalamus, a key region in the brain, in ways that are similar to the changes that occur among menopausal women. As described in the October issue of the journal Behavioral Neuroscience, the researchers then put the rats through a water maze test to measure their memory. They found the ovary removal was not enough to impair the animals' performance, but as soon as the rats were given either regular estrogen replacement therapy or induced chronic brain inflammation, the animals' water maze test scores worsened. Furthermore, the rats that received both procedures performed far worse than those receiving either estrogen alone or subjected to brain inflammation -- which simulated the effects of Alzheimer's. posted by Sydney on 10/30/2002 07:16:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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