Center for Stress and Neural Regulation of Reproductive Aging Health Outcomes

Brigham And Women'S Hospital, Boston MA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

The Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH)/Harvard Medical School (HMS) Reproductive Outcomes of Stress and Aging (ROSA) SCORE focuses on stress exposures and how neural regulation transmits stress to worsen women’s health during and after menopause. The overarching scientific goal of the ROSA SCORE renewal is to investigate the impact of both individual- and neighborhood-level stress exposures on vasomotor symptoms (VMS) and problems with sleep, mood, memory, and cognition during menopause. Disturbances in these neurocognitive domains greatly disrupt the health and activities of women during this pivotal reproductive health transition and may accelerate cognitive aging, including dementia, which is more common in aging women than men. Stress has been linked with many health conditions in women, but important gaps remain related to menopause and neurocognitive aging. One vital exposure the ROSA SCORE will investigate is artificial light at night (ALAN) at both neighborhood and individual levels, which appears elevated in menopausal women due to VMS-related sleep disruption, with consequences for stress responsivity, mood, and cognition (including memory). ROSA SCORE research will include innovative, inter-related animal and human projects; human projects that share a study cohort and neurocognitive outcomes; and an innovative Sleep and Light Research Core that supports all projects. Project A (epidemiology) leverages a 25+ year cohort study with rich neighborhood- and individual-level data. Project B (clinical) uses a randomized controlled trial to test the impact of ALAN exposure on sleep, mood, and cognitive outcomes in women with VMS. Project C (pre-clinical) uses a mouse model of menopause to characterize the roles of hypothalamic KNDy neurons in the arcuate nucleus and neurokinin B receptor-expressing neurons in the median preoptic area in sensing and transmitting stress signals to modulate core body and skin temperature changes of VMS, sleep, and cognition. A robust Career Enhancement Core will continue our objective of catalyzing research on aging women’s neurocognitive health by funding, mentoring, and educating early-career investigators through pilot grants and educational programming. The ROSA SCORE has engaged an outstanding interdisciplinary team of renowned scientific leaders who continue to be supported by the BWH Connors Center for Women’s Health Research, the leading women’s health research program at BWH/HMS, which will contribute significant institutional resources, including supplemental funding for ROSA Center pilot grants, and which interfaces with synergistic research programs focused on women’s brain health, including on dementia, to augment the impact of the ROSA Center locally and across the SCORE Consortium. The ROSA Center, thus, is uniquely well positioned to contribute critical knowledge about the impact of stress on neurocognitive performance in aging women.