Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
Following natural menopause, androstenedione becomes the main hormone secreted by the follicle-depleted ovaries. We have previously evaluated high physiological doses of androstenedione in the female rodent, and found relations between higher androstenedione levels and spatial memory impairment; this relationship was shown when androstenedione levels were of endogenous, or exogenous, origin…
Following natural menopause, androstenedione becomes the main hormone secreted by the follicle-depleted ovaries. We have previously evaluated high physiological doses of androstenedione in the female rodent, and found relations between higher androstenedione levels and spatial memory impairment; this relationship was shown when androstenedione levels were of endogenous, or exogenous, origin (Acosta et al., 2009, Camp et al., 2012). This androstenedione-induced memory impairment in females led us to question whether this androgen also impairs memory in males; no study has yet evaluated androstenedione's impact on cognition in the male rodent model. This is a clinically relevant question, as androstenedione is a steroid of abuse. In the current study, four-month old male rats were given either a daily injection of androstenedione, androstenedione with anastrozole or vehicle (polyethylene glycol). Subjects completed a battery of cognitive tasks evaluating spatial working, reference, and recent memory including the water radial arm maze (WRAM), Morris water maze (MM), and delayed match-to-sample maze (DMTS). We found that androstenedione administration impaired spatial cognitive performance in MM on early overnight forgetting and DMTS early recent memory trials across all days of testing. In addition, we found that androstenedione with anastrozole administration impaired spatial cognitive performance in the learning phases and early overnight forgetting in the MM but had no impact in DMTS testing. There were no significant differences in the WRAM maze for either group. Our findings suggest that androstenedione can impair spatial reference and early recent memory, and that anastrozole reverses this impairment for early recent memory, but not reference memory. Interpreted in the context of hormone conversion, androstenedione's effects on spatial learning and memory may be due, in part, to its conversion to estrone.
