title: Cognition and mood in perimenopause: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  It is suggested that declines in estrogen around menopause are associated with declines in cognitive functioning as well as increased risk of depressive symptoms and depressive disorders. Existing studies of objective cognitive function and mood have differed in the criteria used to stage the menopausal transition and in the outcome measures used. The purpose of this review was to synthesize the existing studies of the relationship between menopausal stage and neuropsychological performance and depression.
  
  
  METHODS
  A search of the literature of observational studies was performed using PubMed. Four cross-sectional studies on menopausal transition stage and cognitive function and four longitudinal studies on menopausal transition stage and risk of depression, as measured by symptom inventories and structured clinical interviews, were selected. For the cognitive outcomes, fixed effects models were used to estimate overall standardized effect sizes. For the depression outcomes, the results of group comparisons were summarized using the log odds ratio and its estimated standard error.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Postmenopausal women performed significantly worse than pre- and perimenopausal women on delayed verbal memory tasks, and significantly worse than perimenopausal women on phonemic verbal fluency tasks. Peri- and postmenopausal women were at significantly increased risk of depression, as measured by standard symptom inventories and structured clinical interviews, than premenopausal women.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The menopausal transition is a time of increased vulnerability to cognitive declines and increased risk of depressive symptoms and depressive disorders. However, these results cannot necessarily be generalized beyond the studies included in this review. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled 'Menopause'.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Rochester, Box 673, 601 Elmwood Avenue, Rochester, NY 14642, United States. Electronic address: miriam_weber@urmc.rochester.edu.
authors.forename: Miriam T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Weber
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago, 912 South Wood Street, Chicago, IL 60612, United States; Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago, 912 South Wood Street, Chicago, IL 60612, United States. Electronic address: pmaki@psych.uic.edu.
authors.forename: Pauline M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Maki
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Rochester, Box 673, 601 Elmwood Avenue, Rochester, NY 14642, United States; Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, University of Rochester, 601 Elmwood Avenue, Box 630, Rochester, NY 14642, United States. Electronic address: mikem@bst.rochester.edu.
authors.forename: Michael P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: McDermott
mesh_terms: D003071:Cognition; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008568:Memory; D047648:Perimenopause / Q000523:psychology*; D017697:Premenopause / Q000523:psychology; D064887:Observational Studies as Topic
keywords: Cognition; Depression; Memory; Menopausal transition; Perimenopause