Researchers from the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles conducted a four-year study of 2,362 women between the ages of 42 and 52 to determine how the transition to menopause affects the learning process. As the researchers report in the May 26, 2009 issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, three tests were administered on each participant: to test verbal memory, working memory and to measure the speed that information is processed. Each woman was tested at four different stages of transition to menopause: pre-menopausal (no change in periods), early peri-menopause (some irregularities), late peri-menopause (no period for 3 to 11 months) and post-menopause, (no periods for 12 months).

While study participants showed improvements in processing speed during pre-, peri- and post-menopause, those improvements diminished in late peri-menopause - specifically they were only 28 percent as large as those improvements observed during pre-menopause. During late peri-menopause, verbal memory improvements were just seven percent as large as in pre-menopause. Taking these results together suggest that women in early and late peri-menopause do not learn as well as in other stages throughout the menopause transition.

"These peri-menopausal test results concur with prior self-reported memory difficulties - 60 percent of women state that they have memory problems during the menopause transition," says Dr. Gail Greendale of the David Geffen School of Medicine. "The good news is that the effect of peri-menopause on learning seems to be temporary. Our study found that the amount of learning improved back to pre-menopausal levels during the postmenopausal stage."

There were additional important findings: Taking estrogen or progesterone hormones before menopause helped verbal memory and processing speed, but when taken after the final menstrual period, there was no improvement in either processing speed scores or verbal memory scores, unlike postmenopausal women not taking hormones experience. "Our results suggest that the 'critical period' for estrogen or progesterone's benefits on the brain may be prior to menopause, but the findings should be interpreted with caution," says Dr. Greendale.

News Release: Menopause transition may cause trouble learning www.sciencedaily.com May 26, 2009