Researchers from the Medical College of Georgia have found out that estrogen has the potential of halting damage caused by stroke by inactivating a tumor-suppressing protein regarded for preventing many forms of cancer.

Limor Raz, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the MCG School of Graduate Studies, remarked that this research suggests that estrogen suppresses p53, the tumor-suppressing protein, to stop the stroke damage.

From Sciencedaily.com:

Ms. Raz found that estrogen can chemically alter p53 and attenuate the cascade, thus leading to reduced stroke damage.

She has been working with Dr. Darrell Brann, chief of developmental neurobiology and associate director of the MCG Institute of Molecular Medicine and Genetics, and will present her findings today in Colorado at the American Physiological Society conference focusing on the cardiovascular effects of sex steroids and gender.

Global cerebral ischemia, the most common type of ischemic stroke, in which blood flow to the brain is disrupted, was induced, damaging primarily the hippocampal CA1 region of the brain. In this study, a group of female rats were treated with estrogen versus placebo for seven days and estrogen’s effect on p53 signaling was examined.

“This part of the brain is extremely important because it is where our memory and learning occur,” Ms. Raz says. “During a stroke, you have all these things happening in your brain, and we’ve found that estrogen treatment is effective in reducing some of the damage.”

Ms. Raz said the next step will be all about finding the exact reason of this mechanism.