This review highlights fifty years of progress in research on estradiol's role in regulating behavior(s). It was initially thought that estradiol was only involved in regulating estrus/menstrual cycles and concomitant sexual behavior, but it is now clear that estradiol also influences the higher order neural function of cognition. We provide a brief overview of estradiol's regulation of memory and some mechanisms which underlie its effects. Given systemically or directly into the hippocampus, to ovariectomized female rodents, estradiol or specific agonists, enhance learning and/or memory in a variety of rodent cognitive tasks. Acute (within minutes) or chronic (days) treatments enhance cognitive functions. Under the same treatment conditions, dendritic spine density on pyramidal neurons in the CA1 area of the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex increase which suggests that these changes are an important component of estrogen's ability to impact memory processes. Noradrenergic, dopaminergic and serotoninergic activity are also altered in these areas following estrogen treatments. Memory enhancements and increased spine density by estrogens are not limited to females but are also present in castrate males. In the next fifty years, neuroscientists need to determine how currently described neural changes mediate improved memory, how interactions among areas important for memory promote memory and the potential significance of neurally derived estrogens in normal cognitive processing. Answering these questions may provide significant advances for treatment of dementias as well as age and neuro-degenerative disease related memory loss.

中文翻译：

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记忆的雌激素调节：前50年。

这篇综述重点介绍了雌二醇在调节行为中作用的五十年研究进展。最初认为雌二醇仅参与调节发情/月经周期和伴随的性行为，但现在很清楚，雌二醇也影响认知的高级神经功能。我们简要概述了雌二醇对记忆的调节作用以及一些影响其作用的机制。全身或直接注入海马中，以切除卵巢的雌性啮齿动物，雌二醇或特定的激动剂，可增强在各种啮齿动物认知任务中的学习和/或记忆力。急性（几分钟内）或慢性（几天）治疗可增强认知功能。在相同的治疗条件下 海马CA1区锥体神经元和内侧前额叶皮层的树突棘密度增加，这表明这些变化是雌激素影响记忆过程的重要组成部分。雌激素治疗后，这些区域的去甲肾上腺素能，多巴胺能和5-羟色胺能也发生了改变。雌激素增强记忆力和增加脊柱密度不仅限于女性，而且在cast割男性中也存在。在接下来的五十年中，神经科学家需要确定当前描述的神经变化如何介导改善的记忆力，对记忆重要的区域之间的相互作用如何促进记忆力以及神经源性雌激素在正常认知过程中的潜在重要性。