Most breast cancers are worsened by estrogens.\u00a0To combat the recurrence of\u00a0these cancers, clinicians treat patients with inhibitors\u00a0for estrogen production, like letrozole.\u00a0But\u00a0many patients\u00a0do\u00a0not\u00a0adhere to this\u00a0treatment\u00a0due to\u00a0negative\u00a0side effects.\u00a0Preclinical work in rodents\u00a0suggests that\u00a0a drug called\u00a010\u03b2,17\u03b2-dihydroxyestra-1,4-dien-3-one\u00a0(DHED), which\u00a0delivers estrogen only to\u00a0the brain,\u00a0may be\u00a0an effective, safe\u00a0way to reduce\u00a0these\u00a0side effects. New in JNeurosci, researchers led by Agn\u00e8s Lacreuse, from\u00a0the\u00a0University of Massachusetts Amherst,\u00a0explored\u00a0how\u00a0DHED\u00a0works in\u00a0a more advanced animal model than rodents: aged marmosets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following treatments with\u00a0letrozole, the research\u00a0team discovered that treating marmosets with DHED increased estrogen specifically\u00a0in the brain and improved both memory and sleep. DHED also\u00a0reversed\u00a0neural changes\u00a0from\u00a0letrozole. DHED had different effects on body temperature regulation in males and females, pointing to the need for more research in this area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Says Lacreuse, “Our work\u00a0suggests\u00a0that DHED is a promising new hormonal therapy for women with breast cancer<\/a> and perhaps all menopausal women.”\u00a0The researchers plan to explore the mechanisms DHED acts through in the brain and to assess whether different\u00a0drug\u00a0doses improve temperature regulation issues\u00a0from treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Source:<\/p>\n Journal reference:<\/p>\n Cournoyer, H., et al. (2026). Brain-selective estrogen therapy in male and female marmosets partially counteracts the adverse effects of aromatase inhibition on the brain and behavior. The Journal of Neuroscience.\u00a0DOI:\u00a010.1523\/JNEUROSCI.2021-25.2026.\u00a0https:\/\/www.jneurosci.org\/content\/early\/2026\/05\/28\/JNEUROSCI.2021-25.2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most breast cancers are worsened by estrogens.\u00a0To combat the recurrence of\u00a0these cancers, clinicians treat patients with inhibitors\u00a0for estrogen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1596,4677,2534,16560,134,6570,111,139,69,17561,1518,3422],"class_list":["post-467346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-brain","tag-breast-cancer","tag-cancer","tag-estrogen","tag-health","tag-neuroscience","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-preclinical","tag-research","tag-therapy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}