Comparison of Neuropsychological Functions, Depression and Anxiety in postmenopausal and premenopausal Women in Isfahan

The significance of menopause is due to its association with changes in physical and psychological nerve. Some women pass these changes easily and without any particular crisis, but some others must grapple at this time with a lot of problems.The purpose of this study was to compare the neuropsychological performance, anxiety and depression in postmenopausal and non menopausal women.The participants of this study were , 200 women (100 premenopausal women about 45 to 65 years old and 100 postmenopausal women 20 to 40 years old) who were selected by non-random available sampling in accessible health centers Motahari and Sajjad Amin hospital and Asgariyeh. The research methodology was descriptive (causal-comparative).The research instrument used neuropsychological functions, or brain systems, the quesionnare of 101 questions with 0.89 reliability to evaluate functions of five important brain systems (prefrontal cortex, cingulate gyrus, limbic system, basal ganglia and temporal lobe) and Beck depression questionarre by reliability 0.93 and Beck anxiety by reliability 0.92 to assess depression and anxiety were for the participants . To analyze the data, descriptive and inferential statistics (univariate and multivariate analysis of variance) was used.The results showed that among premenopausal and postmenopausal women ,function of neuropsychological (prefrontal cortex, cingulate gyrus, limbic system, basal ganglia and cortex Tamporal) and anxiety were significantly different (P<0.001) But the from point of depression there is no significant difference (P>0.001). The results showed that functions of neuropsychological after menopause influences because of decreased protective effects of estrogen and postmenopausal women experience more anxiety during this period in comparison to premenopausal