Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2004
Keywords
neurosteroid, dehydroepiandrosterone, DHEA, hippocampus, long-term potentiation, memory
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1080/15401420490900290
Abstract
Dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) is a steroid hornone that is synthesized, de novo, in the brain. Endogenous DHEAS levels correlate with the quality of mental and physical health, where the highest levels of DHEAS occur in healthy young adults and reduced levels of DHEAS are found with advanced age, disease, or extreme stress. DHEAS supplementation, therefore, may serve as a therapeutic agent against a broad range of maladies. This paper summarizes laboratory findings on dose-response relationships between DHEAS and cognitive and electrophysiological measures of hippocampal functioning. It was found that a low, but not a high, dose of DHEAS enhanced hippocampal primed burst potentiation (a physiological model of memory) as well as spatial (hippocampal-dependent) memory in rats. This complex dose-response function of DHEAS effects on the brain and memory may contribute toward the inconsistent findings that have been obtained by other investigators in studies on DHEAS administration in people.
Rights Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Nonlinearity in Biology, Toxicology and Medicine, v. 2, issue 4, p. 371-378
Scholar Commons Citation
Diamond, David M., "Enhancement of Cognitive and Electrophysiological Measures of Hippocampal Functioning in Rats by a Low, but not high, dose of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS)" (2004). Psychology Faculty Publications. 1331.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/psy_facpub/1331
