Estrogen's Neuroprotection Paper

The topic of this paper is estrogen’s neuroprotective mechanism in reference to neuronal injury and repair and the actual method of neuroprotection estrogens utilize. Estrogens play a monumental role in protection from brain injury and neurodegenerative disease (Lebesgue, 2009). Research questions dealt with estrogen’s specific mechanism for neuroprotection and whether or not estrogen’s neuroprotection changed over a life time. Research on estrogen’s neuroprotective mechanisms is emerging and growing every year. This paper will discuss two papers with varying results on how estrogen protects neurons and other nervous tissue. Methods of the literature to be reviewed are animal testing and statistics. The animals were tested for a base line, placed under various forms of neuronal injury in the presence of estrogens, and tested again. The animals who had a higher concentration of estrogen recovered and performed better than the animals with less estrogens. Estrogen’s neuroprotection is not yet well understood, but science is recognizing its immense aid in protecting neurons from extensive damage.

Estrogen is
The main issue is figuring out how estrogen neuroprotection works. The research reviewed in this paper includes: that there is a specific signaling process that happens in the estrogen receptor-α in astrocytes (glial cell of the central nervous system) (Spence, et al., 2011), that extra nuclear estrogen receptors induces signaling in the hippocampus that attenuates neuronal injuries and may preserve function (Zhang, et al., 2010). Estrogen receptors alpha and beta estrogen receptors are the nuclear receptors that can be activated by ligands and accepts estrogens. There are two types : estrogen receptor-α (ER-α) and estrogen receptor-β (ER-β). There is not much difference between the