The present study explored whether early midlife bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (BSO), a female-specific risk factor for dementia, is associated with reduced medial temporal lobe structure and function. Younger middle-aged women with the BRCA1/2 mutation and a BSO prior to spontaneous menopause (SM) were recruited. We determined the performance of women with BSO not taking estradiol-based hormone therapy (n = 18) on a task measuring object and scene recognition and quantified medial temporal lobe subregion volumes using manually segmented high-resolution T2-weighted MRI scans. Comparisons were made to those with BSO taking estradiol-based hormone therapy (n = 20), age-matched premenopausal controls (n = 28), and older women in SM not taking hormone therapy matched for duration of hormone deprivation (n = 17). Reduced hippocampal integrity specific to the BSO group not taking hormone therapy was observed, reflected by significantly smaller dentate gyrus/CA2/CA3 volumes and lower scene recognition memory performance. These findings show that hippocampal subfield volume may be useful for identifying early midlife changes in women at elevated risk for dementia.
Keywords: Bilateral oophorectomy; Estradiol; Hippocampus; Memory; Neuroimaging; Scene recognition memory.
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