Phone:(480) 727-0766
Fax: (480) 965-8544

E-mail:
bimonte.nelson@asu.edu

Lab Website:

Memory and Aging

Laboratory

Heather Bimonte-Nelson, PhD, 2000, University of Connecticut

Behavioral Neuroscience

Research Interests:

The research goals of our laboratory are to characterize the cognitive and brain changes that occur during aging, as well as to develop behavioral, pharmacological, and dietary strategies to attenuate mnemonic and neurobiological age-related alterations using animal models. Towards this goal, one of our primary interests is to determine the roles that sex, hormones, and brain chemistry play in brain function and cognition in young versus aged animals. More recently, our interests incorporate these goals with relevance to Alzheimer’s disease-related variables. In addition, one of our long-term goals is to apply these research questions to the human population via clinical research.

Teaching:

Neurobiology of Learning and Memory

Behavioral Neuroscience Seminar

Behavioral Neuroscience of Aging

Behavioral Neuroendocrinology

Research projects:

Hormone replacement therapy effects on cognition and the brain as aging ensues

How reproductive senescence influences age-related cognitive and neural deterioration

Dietary and experiential factors that alter age-related learning, memory, and neural changes: interactions with sex and hormone milieu

Selected Publications:

Bimonte-Nelson H.A., Granholm, A.C, Nelson, M.E., Moore, A.B. Patterns of neurotrophin protein levels in male and female rats from adulthood to senescence, in press, Experimental Aging Research.

Williams BJ, Bimonte-Nelson HA, Granholm-Bentley AC. (2006) ERK-mediated NGF signaling in the rat septo-hippocampal pathway diminishes with age, Psychopharmacology, 88, 605-618.

Bimonte-Nelson, H.A., Francis, K.R., Umphlet, C.D. and Granholm, A-C. (2006) Progesterone reverses the spatial memory enhancements of tonic and cyclic estrogen therapy in middle-aged female rats, European Journal of Neuroscience, 24, 229-242.

French, K.L., Granholm, A.C., Moore, A.B., Nelson, M.E., and Bimonte-Nelson, H.A. (2006) Chronic nicotine improves working and reference memory performance and decreases hippocampal NGF in aged female rats, Behavioral Brain Research, 169, 256-262.

Kippin T.E., Fuchs R.A., Mehta R.H., Case J.M., Parker M.P., Bimonte-Nelson H.A., See R.E. (2005) Potentiation of cocaine-primed reinstatement of drug seeking in female rats during estrus. Psychopharmacology, 182, 245-52.

Bimonte-Nelson, H.A., Nelson, M.E, and Granholm, A.C. (2004) Progesterone counteracts estrogen-induced increases in neurotrophins in the aged female rat brain, Neuroreport, 15, 2659-2663.

Bimonte-Nelson, H.A., Singleton, R.S., Williams, B.J., and Granholm, A.C. (2004) Ovarian hormones and cognition in the aged female rat: II. Progesterone supplementation reverses the cognitive enhancing effects of ovariectomy. Behavioral Neuroscience, 118, 707-714.

Bimonte-Nelson, H.A., Singleton, R.S., Hunter, C.L., Price, K.L., Moore, A., and Granholm, A.-C. (2003) Ovarian hormones and cognition in the aged female rat: I. Long-term, but not short-term, ovariectomy enhances spatial performance. Behavioral Neuroscience, 117, 1395-1406.

Bimonte-Nelson, H.A., Singleton, R.S., Nelson, M.E., Eckman, C.B., Barber, J., Scott, T.Y., and Granholm, A.C. (2003) Testosterone, but not non-aromatizable dihydrotestosterone, improves working memory and alters nerve growth factor levels in aged male rats. Experimental Neurology,81(2):301-12.

Hunter, C.L., Isacson, O., Nelson, M., Bimonte-Nelson, H.A., Seo., H., Lin, L., Ford, K., Kindy, M., and Granholm, A-C. (2003) Regional alterations in amyloid precursor protein and nerve growth factor across age in a mouse model of Down’s Syndrome. Neuroscience Research, 45(4):437-45.

Bimonte, H.A., Hunter, C.L., Nelson, M.E., and Granholm, A-C. (2003) Frontal cortex BDNF levels correlate with working memory in an animal model of Down Syndrome. Behavioural Brain Research, 139, 47-57.

Bimonte, H.A., Nelson, M.E., and Granholm, A.C. (2003) Age-related deficits as working memory load increases: relationships with growth factors. Neurobiology of Aging, 24, 37-48.

Bimonte, H.A., Granholm, A.C., Seo, H., and Isacson, O (2002). Spatial memory testing decreases hippocampal amyloid precursor protein in young, but not aged, female rats. Neuroscience Letters, 298, 50-54.

Bimonte, H.A., Mack, C.M., Stavnezer, A.J. and Denenberg, V.H. (2000) Ovarian hormones can organize the rat corpus callosum in adulthood. Developmental Brain Research, 121, 169-177.

Bimonte, H.A., Fitch, R.H., and Denenberg, V.H. (2000) Neonatal estrogen blockade prevents normal callosal responsiveness to estradiol in adulthood. Developmental Brain Research, 122, 149-155.

Bimonte, H.A. and Denenberg, V.H. (1999) Estradiol facilitates performance as working memory load increases. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 24, 161-173.

Recent Funding:

Grant from National Institute on Aging (R01), PI:Heather Bimonte Nelson, "Variations in Hormone Therapy: Effects on Cognition and Markers of Brain Aging" 9/07-7/12

Grant from Institute for Mental Health Research, PI: Heather Bimonte-Nelson, Collaborator: Loretta Mayer, Northern Arizona University . "Cognitive functioning in a transitional versus surgical rat model of menopause." 5/07-5/08.

Grant from Alzheimer's Disease Core Center (NIH), PI: Heather Bimonte-Nelson, Co-Investigator: William Tyler. "Ovarian hormone loss and the aging brain: an analysis of hippocampal structure and function." 8/07-7/08.

Grant from Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, Alzheimer's Disease Research Consortium. "Devising a new test of non-spatial working memory to evaluate aging in the rodent." 10/06-10/07.

Grant from the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute, University of Arizona: "In vivo memory drug screening of KIBRA effects during aging" (collaboration with TGEN, Phoenix, AZ). 7/06 – 6/08.

Grant from National Institute on Aging (R03): “Sex Differences in Factors Influencing Cognitive Aging”, 10/05-10/07