Without a uterus, memory deteriorates
But if you remove it together with the ovaries, then not very much
American scientists have found that the removal of the uterus in rats leads to a deterioration of short-term memory. At the same time, the removal of the uterus along with the ovaries had almost no effect on memory.
There is an idea that the uterus is needed solely as a receptacle of the fetus, and the rest of the time, being empty, "idles". Scientists decided to check whether the idea of a non-working uterus is so true. As they write in their article, today there is information that the uterus is innervated by the central and peripheral nervous systems and contains gonadotropin and steroid hormone receptors even not during pregnancy.
For the experiment, rats were chosen whose reproductive system, according to the authors, is quite similar to a human one. The rats were divided into four groups – one removed the uterus, the other the ovaries, the third cut out both, and the animals from the fourth simply cut the abdominal cavity and sewed back up without touching anything.
6 weeks after the operation, the rats were tested using tests that were supposed to show the level of their cognitive skills. Interestingly, in the first trials, rats who had their ovaries removed or both ovaries and uterus showed better results than those who had nothing removed. For example, they made fewer mistakes when looking for food in the maze.
However, after 12 days, the indicators of rats that survived reproductive organs worsened. By the end of the tests, short-term memory worked the worst in rats whose uterus was removed, leaving ovaries.
Biochemistry analyses have shown that rats without ovaries or uterus have increased the content of hormones that are associated with reproduction, and at the same time are synthesized in the pituitary gland. According to scientists, the brain, ovaries and uterus create a complex system of interactions, and the removal of one of the elements destroys this system, affecting the means by which it was connected – hormones and neurotransmitters, the central and peripheral systems. Exactly how these changes are related to cognitive impairment is unclear.
Article by Koebele et al. Hysterectomy Uniquely Impacts Spatial Memory in a Rat Model: A Role for the Nonpregnant Uterus in Cognitive Processes published in the journal Endocrinology – VM.
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