Hormone in birth control shot linked to memory loss (Depo Provera)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://researchmatters.asu.edu/stories/hormone-birth-control-shot-linked-memory-loss-2059

Hormone in birth control shot linked to memory loss

by PETE ZRIOKA
Thursday, 6 October 2011

The birth control shot offers a convenient alternative to women who don’t want to remember to take a daily pill. Ironically, recent research from ASU’s Bimonte-Nelson Memory and Aging Laboratory has shown the shot may not be helping memory. In fact, it may be harming it.

The study is currently in press in the journal Psychopharmacology. It connects medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), the hormone active in the birth control shot Depo Provera and many widely used menopausal hormone therapies, to impaired memory in rodents.

The study was led by psychology doctoral student Blair Braden and Heather Bimonte-Nelson, associate professor of psychology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and director of the Bimonte-Nelson Memory and Aging Lab. The work was done in collaboration with Laszlo Prokai from the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center and Alain Simard from Barrow Neurological Institute.

The Bimonte-Nelson lab first linked MPA to memory loss in rats while studying it as a component of hormone therapy for menopause. This earlier study showed that MPA impaired memory in menopausal-aged rats, and was published in November 2010 in Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. The current study specifically looks at the drug in relation to the birth control shot.

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[SheilaT]

1. Well, you wouldn't be taking

the hormone shot expecting your memory to improve. You'd be taking it because you don't want to either put up with the hassle of remembering a daily pill, or simply find it tricky to remember to take one every day.