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Reduced Hippocampal GABA+ Is Associated With Poorer Episodic Memory in Healthy Older Women: A Pilot Study

Background: The current pilot study was designed to examine the association between hippocampal γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) concentration and episodic memory in older individuals, as well as the impact of two major risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease (AD)—female sex and Apolipoprotein ε4 (ApoE ε4) g...

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Autores principales: Jiménez-Balado, Joan, Ycaza Herrera, Alexandra, Igwe, Kay, Klem, Lynda, Buyukturkoglu, Korhan, Irimia, Andrei, Chen, Liu, Guo, Jia, Brickman, Adam M., Eich, Teal S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8427754/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34512283
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2021.695416
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author Jiménez-Balado, Joan
Ycaza Herrera, Alexandra
Igwe, Kay
Klem, Lynda
Buyukturkoglu, Korhan
Irimia, Andrei
Chen, Liu
Guo, Jia
Brickman, Adam M.
Eich, Teal S.
author_facet Jiménez-Balado, Joan
Ycaza Herrera, Alexandra
Igwe, Kay
Klem, Lynda
Buyukturkoglu, Korhan
Irimia, Andrei
Chen, Liu
Guo, Jia
Brickman, Adam M.
Eich, Teal S.
author_sort Jiménez-Balado, Joan
collection PubMed
description Background: The current pilot study was designed to examine the association between hippocampal γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) concentration and episodic memory in older individuals, as well as the impact of two major risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease (AD)—female sex and Apolipoprotein ε4 (ApoE ε4) genotype—on this relationship. Methods: Twenty healthy, community-dwelling individuals aged 50–71 (11 women) took part in the study. Episodic memory was evaluated using a Directed Forgetting task, and GABA+ was measured in the right hippocampus using a Mescher-Garwood point-resolved magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) sequence. Multiple linear regression models were used to quantify the relationship between episodic memory, GABA+, ApoE ɛ4, and sex, controlling for age and education. Results: While GABA+ did not interact with ApoE ɛ4 carrier status to influence episodic memory (p = 0.757), the relationship between GABA+ and episodic memory was moderated by sex: lower GABA+ predicted worse memory in women such that, for each standard deviation decrease in GABA+ concentration, memory scores were reduced by 11% (p = 0.001). Conclusions: This pilot study suggests that sex, but not ApoE ɛ4 genotype, moderates the relationship between hippocampal GABA+ and episodic memory, such that women with lower GABA+ concentration show worse memory performance. These findings, which must be interpreted with caution given the small sample size, may serve as a starting point for larger studies using multimodal neuroimaging to understand the contributions of GABA metabolism to age-related memory decline.
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spelling pubmed-84277542021-09-10 Reduced Hippocampal GABA+ Is Associated With Poorer Episodic Memory in Healthy Older Women: A Pilot Study Jiménez-Balado, Joan Ycaza Herrera, Alexandra Igwe, Kay Klem, Lynda Buyukturkoglu, Korhan Irimia, Andrei Chen, Liu Guo, Jia Brickman, Adam M. Eich, Teal S. Front Behav Neurosci Behavioral Neuroscience Background: The current pilot study was designed to examine the association between hippocampal γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) concentration and episodic memory in older individuals, as well as the impact of two major risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease (AD)—female sex and Apolipoprotein ε4 (ApoE ε4) genotype—on this relationship. Methods: Twenty healthy, community-dwelling individuals aged 50–71 (11 women) took part in the study. Episodic memory was evaluated using a Directed Forgetting task, and GABA+ was measured in the right hippocampus using a Mescher-Garwood point-resolved magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) sequence. Multiple linear regression models were used to quantify the relationship between episodic memory, GABA+, ApoE ɛ4, and sex, controlling for age and education. Results: While GABA+ did not interact with ApoE ɛ4 carrier status to influence episodic memory (p = 0.757), the relationship between GABA+ and episodic memory was moderated by sex: lower GABA+ predicted worse memory in women such that, for each standard deviation decrease in GABA+ concentration, memory scores were reduced by 11% (p = 0.001). Conclusions: This pilot study suggests that sex, but not ApoE ɛ4 genotype, moderates the relationship between hippocampal GABA+ and episodic memory, such that women with lower GABA+ concentration show worse memory performance. These findings, which must be interpreted with caution given the small sample size, may serve as a starting point for larger studies using multimodal neuroimaging to understand the contributions of GABA metabolism to age-related memory decline. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-08-26 /pmc/articles/PMC8427754/ /pubmed/34512283 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2021.695416 Text en Copyright © 2021 Jiménez-Balado, Ycaza Herrera, Igwe, Klem, Buyukturkoglu, Irimia, Liu, Guo, Brickman and Eich. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Behavioral Neuroscience
Jiménez-Balado, Joan
Ycaza Herrera, Alexandra
Igwe, Kay
Klem, Lynda
Buyukturkoglu, Korhan
Irimia, Andrei
Chen, Liu
Guo, Jia
Brickman, Adam M.
Eich, Teal S.
Reduced Hippocampal GABA+ Is Associated With Poorer Episodic Memory in Healthy Older Women: A Pilot Study
title Reduced Hippocampal GABA+ Is Associated With Poorer Episodic Memory in Healthy Older Women: A Pilot Study
title_full Reduced Hippocampal GABA+ Is Associated With Poorer Episodic Memory in Healthy Older Women: A Pilot Study
title_fullStr Reduced Hippocampal GABA+ Is Associated With Poorer Episodic Memory in Healthy Older Women: A Pilot Study
title_full_unstemmed Reduced Hippocampal GABA+ Is Associated With Poorer Episodic Memory in Healthy Older Women: A Pilot Study
title_short Reduced Hippocampal GABA+ Is Associated With Poorer Episodic Memory in Healthy Older Women: A Pilot Study
title_sort reduced hippocampal gaba+ is associated with poorer episodic memory in healthy older women: a pilot study
topic Behavioral Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8427754/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34512283
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2021.695416
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