New Research Revealed That Long-Term Steroid Use May Impair Memory
A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Bristol has found that long-term steroid use could result in memory impairment.
Most commonly known as “steroids,” glucocorticoids are anti-inflammatory drugs frequently prescribed for a wide range of conditions– such as asthma, allergies, arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease.
But, the drugs are not without side effects, often causing adverse impacts on mood and sleep. Additionally, numerous patients have reported experiencing memory impairment and cognitive decline after being prescribed steroids.
“People who are prescribed steroids often report memory deficits. However, it’s been difficult to disentangle if this is the result of the underlying medical cause or if it’s an adverse effect of the treatment itself,” said Dr. Matthew Birnie, the study’s first author.
That’s why Dr. Becky Conway-Campbell, the study’s leader, and her multidisciplinary team of researchers set out to study the effects of steroid treatments on memory processing. They hoped to determine whether the adverse effects were caused by steroid use or rooted in underlying medical conditions.
To do this, the team utilized a rodent model and discovered that even short-term use of prescribed steroids– such as a five-day course of methylprednisolone– resulted in memory performance impairment when completing a learning and memory-related task.
The rodent model brain analysis revealed that the hippocampus– or a critical brain region for learning and memory– was significantly impacted by steroid treatment.
In fact, using electrophysical recordings, the researchers discovered that hippocampus function activity in the rodent model was drastically impaired after being treated with methylprednisolone.
“Our findings provide breakthrough insights into the impact steroid treatment has on memory processes in the absence of underlying medical conditions,” explained Dr. Birnie.
bnenin – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
“Importantly, these findings identify the critical importance of matching a prescribed course of medical treatment to endogenous steroid release.”
In other words, the researchers’ findings underscore the importance of recording the times at which study experiments are conducted. This is because, in their memory model, the team looked at synaptic plasticity– or the way in which neurons communicate with each other.
This analysis revealed that synaptic potentiation in the hippocampus is only observed during active times of the day– not during sleeping hours.
“Additionally, we have shown that long-term treatment of steroids can block its effectiveness at all times of day and could contribute to the brain fog experienced by many people on steroids,” added Stafford Lightman, a professor of medicine at the University of Bristol.
So now, the researchers are confident that their findings help explain the molecular cause of memory deficits related to steroid treatments. Plus, they are hopeful that, equipped with this information, new drug treatments could be identified and adapted to treat memory disorders.
To read the study’s complete findings, which have since been published in PNAS, visit the link here.
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