Glucocorticoids, commonly known as steroids, are the most commonly prescribed anti-inflammatory drug used to treat a range of conditions including allergies, asthma, arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease. However, they often have an adverse effect on mood, sleep and memory and many patients prescribed steroids report cognitive decline and memory impairment.
A multidisciplinary research team at the University of Bristol, led by Dr Becky Conway-Campbell, wanted to examine the impact of steroid treatment on memory processes to find out if the reported adverse effects were a result of the steroid or the underlying medical condition.
Using a rodent model, the team found that even a relatively short course of prescribed steroids - methylprednisolone for five days – led to impaired memory performance when carrying out a memory and learning-related task.
An analysis of the rodent model brains indicated that the brain region important for memory and learning - the hippocampus - was significantly altered by the treatment. The functional activity of the hippocampus, measured by electrophysiological recordings, was profoundly impaired in the rodent model treated with methylprednisolone, providing the first evidence of a root cause for the memory deficit.
Paper: 'Circadian regulation of hippocampal function is disrupted with corticosteroid treatment' by Matthew T. Birnie, Matthew D.B. Claydon, Stafford L. Lightman, Becky L. Conway-Campbell et al. in PNAS [open access]