Funding Agency:

National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging (Grant No. U01 AG12546)

Total Project Period:

6/1/99 - 4/30/09

Total Project Award:

$1,570,445

Principal Investigator:

Karen Matthews, PhD, (Department of Psychiatry)

Co-Investigators:

Joyce Bromberger, PhD (Department of Epidemiology); Jane Cauley, PhD (Department of Epidemiology); Charlotte Brown, (Department of Psychiatry); Yue Fang Chang, PhD

The study aims are:

1. to identify and validate reliable markers of the transition from pre- to peri-menopause and describe their normal variation in a multi-ethnic cohort of mid-aged women;
2. to estimate the normal variations in the full menopause process, including the two transitions from pre- to perimenopause and peri- to postmenopause, with a hypothesized accelerated rate of endocrinological changed in the perimenopause; and
3. to estimate the relative contributions of reproductive and chronological aging on important disease processes.