BRAIN PROCESSING OF EMOTIONAL INFORMATION IN TRANSGENDER INDIVIDUALS

这个子项目是许多研究子项目中的一个 由NIH/NCRR资助的中心赠款提供的资源。子项目和 研究者（PI）可能从另一个NIH来源获得了主要资金， 因此可在其他CRISP条目中表示。所列机构为 研究中心，而研究中心不一定是研究者所在的机构。 一些研究表明，女性和男性在处理和回应情感信息方面存在很大的性别差异。最近有大量的研究是关于大脑中一个叫做杏仁核的区域的两性异形。杏仁核与情绪和唤起记忆的回忆有关。这些研究得出的结论是，男性和女性的情绪记忆是在杏仁核的不同半球进行处理的。女性杏仁核的激活发生在编码情感记忆的左半球，而男性杏仁核的激活发生在编码情感记忆的右半球。此外，一些研究表明，跨性别身份可能有一个神经生物学基础，这表明跨性别个体的生物组织更类似于他们的性别身份，而不是他们的生物性别。先前对变性人大脑侧化的研究报告称，变性人的大脑侧化与他们的性别认同一致，而不是生物性别。 理解为什么大脑处理和记忆情感信息的方式存在性别差异是很重要的，因为有许多精神疾病具有很大的性别差异，并且还涉及情感信息的受损处理。抑郁症和创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）是两个涉及情绪失调并对一种性别的影响大于另一种性别的疾病。20%的女性患有抑郁症，而男性只有10%。这种性别差异的确切原因尚不清楚，但有人认为这是由于大脑结构和功能以及认知功能和风格的性别差异。也有人认为，杏仁核的生理活动升高似乎与情绪行为有关。其他研究发现，抑郁症与主要在女性中发现的左杏仁核活动增强有关。据报道，跨性别群体的抑郁症发病率高于平均水平，自杀风险也更高。抑郁症的发病率较高在很大程度上受到社会规范和信仰的影响，而社会规范和信仰在一定程度上受到跨性别身份背后没有生物学原因的概念的影响。因此，杏仁核处理情绪信息与性别之间的联系对于跨性别群体来说至关重要，因为他们患抑郁症的风险高于平均水平。 重要的是要进一步研究杏仁核的神经生物学及其与抑郁症的关系，以及了解它在每个人（包括变性人）中的功能。更多地了解情绪记忆和相关大脑激活的性别差异的神经生物学，对于这些临床疾病的治疗方法的未来发展将非常重要。 该提案将描述一项研究，以检查跨性别受试者的情绪记忆和相关的大脑激活，无论是在激素上还是在激素上，以了解更多关于生物性别，激素和大脑激活的性二态模式之间的关系，观察到记忆情感信息。这是一项大脑成像研究，旨在检查跨性别者在情绪记忆测试中的大脑激活模式。将研究两组跨性别者，12名男变女跨性别者和12名女变男跨性别者。在每组中，6名参与者将接受激素治疗，6名不接受激素治疗。每个参与者将参加一个研究日，我们将使用功能磁共振成像来评估他们在情绪记忆编码过程中的杏仁核激活。从这项研究中获得的知识将提供有关情感记忆性别差异的神经生物学基础的重要信息，以及跨性别个体，同时进一步了解性别影响的精神疾病。

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Some studies have suggested that there are large gender differences in how women and men process and respond to emotional information. More recently there has been a great deal of research concerning the sexual dimorphism of an area of the brain called the amygdala. The amygdala is involved in the recall of emotional and arousing memory. These studies have concluded that emotional memory is processed in different hemispheres of the amygdala by men and women. In women amygdala activation occurs in the left hemisphere when encoding emotion memory and in the right hemisphere of the amygdala with in men. In addition, several studies have suggested that there may be a neurobiological underpinning to transgender identity that suggests that transgender individuals have biological organization more similar to their gender identity than to their biological sex. Prior research conducted on brain lateralization in transsexuals has reported that transsexuals have cerebral brain lateralization in congruence with their gender identity rather than biological sex. Understanding why there are gender differences in how the brain processes and remembers emotional information is important because there are a number of psychiatric disorders that have large gender differences and also involve the impaired processing of emotional information. Two examples of disorders that involve emotional dysregulation and affect one sex more than the other are depression and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Depression occurs in 20 percent of women compared to 10 percent of men. The exact reason for this sex difference is unknown, however it is suggested that it is due to sex related differences in brain structures and functioning, as well as cognitive functions and styles. It has also been suggested that elevated physiological activity in the amygdala appears to be implicated in emotional behavior. Other research has found that depression is linked to enhanced activity of the left amygdala predominantly found in women. It has been reported that the trans community have higher than the average rates of depression and that their risk of suicide is also higher. This higher incidence of depression is largely influenced by societal norms and beliefs which are in part influenced by the notion that there is no biological cause underlying transgender identity. Therefore, the link between the amygdala processing of emotional information and gender is of utmost importance for the trans community due their higher than average risk of depression. It is important to further investigate the neurobiology of the amygdala and its relationship to depression, as well as understanding its functioning in everyone, including transgender individuals. Learning more about the neurobiology of gender differences in emotional memory and related brain activation will be important for the future development of treatments for these clinical disorders. This proposal will describe a study to examine emotional memory and related brain activation in transgender subjects both on and off hormones in order to learn more about the relationship between biological sex, hormones and the sexually dimorphic pattern of brain activation observed for remembering emotional information. This is a brain imaging study examining the patterns of brain activation during emotional memory tests in transgender individuals. Two groups of transgender individuals will be studied, 12 male to female transgender and 12 female to male transgender. Within each group 6 participants will be taking hormone treatment and 6 will not. Each participant will participate in one study day in which we will use fMRI to assess their amygdale activation during emotional memory encoding. The knowledge gained from this study will provide important information about the neurobiological underlying of gender differences in emotional memory, as well as in transgender individuals, while furthering knowledge about gender influenced psychiatric disorders.