Emotional hormones: the impact of endogenous and synthetic sex steroids on sexual responsiveness in women

情绪激素：内源性和合成性类固醇对女性性反应的影响

• 批准号: 383682113
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Birgit Derntl
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Abteilung Allgemeine Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie mit Poliklinik
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2016-12-31 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/383682113?language=en
• 关键词: Emotional; hormones; impact; endogenous; synthetic

Oral contraceptives (OCs) are taken by millions of women worldwide every day. No other pill has had such a tremendous effect on society, primarily by enabling women to control and prevent pregnancy, thereby challenging societal conventions and gender stereotypes. While evidence has accumulated that endogenous sex steroids affect a broad spectrum of human behaviour, little is known about the psychological and neurobiological effects of OC-intake. The few existing studies however point to significant changes in social behaviour, which may have far reaching individual and societal consequences: mating preferences shift across the menstrual cycle and are affected by OC-intake. Further, sex steroids affect sexual desire and arousal and alter reward processing. Therefore, concentration of sex steroids has critical impact on a very important facet of a womans life: mate choice and mating preferences. Consequently, it may affect sexual appetence and thus the actual behavioural tendencies i.e. approach and avoidance behaviour, however, this has not been assessed up to now.The main objective of this proposal is to investigate the impact of endogenous and synthetic sex steroids on sexual appetence and brain response. To do so, 3 groups of women will be studied: 1) naturally cycling women, 2) women starting OC-intake after the first measurement and 3) women with OC-intake longer than 12 months. All women will undergo an approach-avoidance task targeting sexual appetence using functional neuroimaging techniques. Additionally, we will assess brain volume and resting-state functional connectivity. To assess changes due to OC-intake, all women will be measured twice to highlight short-term impact of OC-intake after 3 months. Moreover, effects of cycle- and OC-intake dependent hormonal fluctuations on performance and neuroimaging parameters (neural activation, resting state functional connectivity and grey matter morphometry) will also be analysed.The present project focuses on the combination and subsequent integration of behavioural, subjective, endocrinological and neural data on female social behaviour. This will be the first study to address the impact of OC-intake on several levels combing different neuroimaging parameters (functional activation, resting-state functional connectivity and brain volume) as well as behavioural performance. By doing so, the psychological and neurobiological implications of OC-intake will be characterised.

全世界每天有数百万妇女服用口服避孕药。没有其他药丸对社会产生如此巨大的影响，主要是通过使妇女能够控制和防止怀孕，从而挑战社会习俗和性别陈规定型观念。虽然越来越多的证据表明，内源性类固醇会影响人类的广泛行为，但人们对摄入OC对心理和神经生物学的影响知之甚少。然而，现有的少数研究指出，社会行为发生了重大变化，这可能会对个人和社会产生深远的影响：交配偏好在月经周期中发生变化，并受到OC摄入量的影响。此外，性激素还会影响性欲、性唤醒和改变奖赏的过程。因此，性激素浓度对女性生活中一个非常重要的方面--配偶选择和交配偏好--有着至关重要的影响。因此，它可能会影响性欲，从而影响实际的行为倾向，即接近和回避行为，然而，到目前为止，这一点还没有得到评估。这项建议的主要目的是调查内源性和合成性类固醇对性欲望和大脑反应的影响。为此，将研究3组妇女：1)自然骑自行车妇女，2)第一次测量后开始摄入OC的妇女和3)OC摄入超过12个月的妇女。所有女性都将接受一项以性欲为目标的避让任务，使用功能性神经成像技术。此外，我们还将评估大脑体积和静息状态的功能连接。为了评估OC摄入量的变化，所有女性都将测量两次，以突出3个月后OC摄入量的短期影响。此外，还将分析依赖于周期和OC摄入量的激素波动对表现和神经成像参数(神经激活、休息状态功能连通性和灰质形态测量)的影响。本项目侧重于结合和随后整合关于女性社会行为的行为、主观、内分泌和神经数据。这将是第一次结合不同的神经成像参数(功能激活、静息状态功能连接和脑容量)以及行为表现来研究OC摄入量在几个水平上的影响。通过这样做，OC摄入量的心理和神经生物学影响将被特化。