Biomedical subjects

Michelle B Neiss

Publications and source records attributed to Michelle B Neiss.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Testosterone loss and estradiol administration modify memory in men.

PURPOSE: Little is known about the effect of androgen deprivation therapy on the brain despite the fact that sex steroid receptors are abundant in cortical brain regions that mediate memory and other cognitive functions. We characterized the impact of androgen deprivation and of subsequent estradiol therapy on the long-term and working memory of patients with prostate cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Long-term memory (immediate and delayed paragraph recall tests), working memory (SOP and Trails tests) and Profile of Mood States were assessed at baseline and 4 weeks later in 18 patients with androgen independent prostate cancer beginning second line hormonal therapy with transdermal estradiol 0.6 mg/24 hours. The same assessments were performed in 2 age matched control groups of 18 patients with prostate cancer undergoing androgen deprivation continuing on hormonal therapy and 17 community dwelling healthy men. RESULTS: Immediate and delayed verbal memory were significantly worse in patients with prostate cancer on androgen deprivation than in age matched healthy controls. In addition, men with prostate cancer took more time to complete the Trails A task, indicating slower processing speed, but did not differ significantly from healthy controls in working memory tasks. In individual repeated measures analyses, verbal memory performance improved with estradiol therapy but did not change in the 2 control groups. CONCLUSIONS: Sex steroid loss and replacement have effects on specific cognitive processes in older men. Furthermore, estrogen has the potential to reverse the neurotoxic effects on memory performance caused by androgen deprivation.

Affect↗

PubMed2006

Self-evaluation in a naturalistic context: the case of juvenile offenders.

The authors investigated how self-evaluation motives (self-enhancement, self-assessment, self-verification, self-improvement - and also self-diminishment and no information) shape self-knowledge preferences in male incarcerated juvenile offenders (IJOs). IJOs responded to questions on how much they would like to receive and actually received each of six types of feedback (positive, truthful, improving, consistent, negative and no feedback) from each of six sources (teachers, parents, siblings, best friend, girlfriend and behavioural specialists or psychologists). IJOs disliked negative feedback and the lack of feedback. They preferred truthful feedback to consistent feedback, and received truthful and positive feedback more frequently than improving feedback. Additionally, they received more negative or no feedback from parents than they would like. Finally, IJOs expressed a preference for receiving more improving feedback from their girlfriends than they did. The study highlights the interplay of self-evaluation motives in IJOs and opens up promising research and rehabilitation directions.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Executive self, self-esteem, and negative affectivity: relations at the phenotypic and genotypic level.

Complementary approaches examined the relations among executive self, self-esteem, and negative affectivity. A cross-sectional (N = 4,242) and a longitudinal (N = 158) study established that self-esteem mediated the relation between executive self and negative affectivity. A 3rd study (N = 878 twin pairs) replicated this pattern and examined genetic and environmental influences underlying all 3 phenotypes. Covariation among the 3 phenotypes reflected largely common genetic influences, although unique genetic effects explained variability in both executive self and negative affectivity. Executive self was influenced by shared environmental influences unique from those affecting self-esteem and negative affectivity. Non-shared environmental influences accounted for the majority of variance in each construct and were primarily unique to each. The unique genetic and non-shared environmental influences support the proposition that the executive self, self-esteem, and negative affectivity capture distinct and important differences between people.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Androgen deprivation impairs memory in older men.

Androgen deprivation leads to a profound loss of synaptic density in the hippocampus and changes in learning and memory in animal models. The authors examined group differences in verbal memory between men on androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), a commonly used treatment for prostate cancer, and healthy men. The authors found that men on ADT have a specific impairment of retention but normal encoding and retrieval processes on a word list-learning task. Speed and accuracy for both perceptual and semantic encoding, as well as retrieval at a very short retention interval, were not affected; however, recognition fell to chance after a 2-min retention interval in men on ADT. Healthy men showed only moderate forgetting, and performance was still above chance at 12 min. This pattern of preserved encoding and retrieval but impaired retention suggests that androgens play a role in hippocampally mediated memory processes, possibly having a specific affect on consolidation.

Aged↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Hot flashes and estrogen therapy do not influence cognition in early menopausal women.

OBJECTIVE: To examine how menopausal symptoms and estrogen therapy (ET)-induced symptom relief affect cognition in early menopause. DESIGN: There were two components. Part 1 was a cross-sectional study of 37 healthy, recently postmenopausal women with diverse menopausal symptoms. Women were categorized as having low (n=20) or high symptoms (n=17) based on a validated symptom questionnaire. Women completed mood and sleep questionnaires and underwent cognitive testing, which included verbal memory, visual memory, emotional memory, and verbal fluency. Thirty-two of these women went on to part 2 of the study. Fourteen were randomly assigned to receive ET and 18 to receive placebo for 8 weeks. Before treatment and at 4 and 8 weeks, women completed the same measures as in part 1 of the study. RESULTS: High symptom women had more negative mood (P=0.01) and lower quality sleep (P<0.001) than low symptom women. Despite suffering from more menopausal symptoms, worse mood, and poorer sleep, women in the high symptom group performed the same on cognitive testing as women in the low symptom group. Women receiving ET had greater improvements in menopausal symptoms and sleep compared with those receiving the placebo (P<or=0.05). ET did not improve mood compared with placebo. Women receiving ET did not have any improvement in cognitive performance compared with those receiving the placebo. CONCLUSIONS: Menopausal symptoms do not impair cognition. ET does not improve cognition despite alleviating symptoms and improving sleep in recently naturally menopausal women with diverse menopausal symptoms.

Cognition↗