Karyn Frick, a neuroscientist and professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is investigating how estrogens regulate memory and brain function. Her interest traces back to an observation in her own mouse research: middle-aged females appeared mentally older, with worse memory, than males of the same age.
That sex difference is the thread she has been pulling on. If estrogens help govern how the brain encodes and retains memories, then the hormonal shifts that accompany aging could help explain why memory declines differently in women and men - and why women make up a disproportionate share of Alzheimer's cases.
Frick's stated aim is to understand how the brain forms memories in the first place, then translate that understanding into new treatments for age-related memory loss and dementia. It is basic neuroscience with a therapeutic destination in mind, which is the kind of work that tends to pay off slowly rather than in headlines.
Her path to the question was almost accidental. As an undergraduate she spent a summer in a lab at Johns Hopkins University watching rats run mazes, and found the behavior fascinating enough to reshape her career. Before that, she had been drawn to marine biology, for the straightforward reason that she thought sea creatures were cool.