BRAIN PROCESSING OF EMOTIONAL INFORMATION IN TRANSGENDER INDIVIDUALS

这个子项目是许多研究子项目中利用 资源由NIH/NCRR资助的中心拨款提供。子项目和 调查员(PI)可能从NIH的另一个来源获得了主要资金， 并因此可以在其他清晰的条目中表示。列出的机构是 该中心不一定是调查人员的机构。 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，有大量关于大脑杏仁核区域的性别二形性的研究。杏仁核与情绪回忆和唤起记忆有关。这些研究得出结论，情绪记忆是由男性和女性在杏仁核不同的半球进行处理的。在女性中，杏仁核在编码情绪记忆时的左半球被激活，而在男性中，杏仁核的右半球被激活。此外，几项研究表明，跨性别者身份可能有神经生物学基础，这表明跨性别者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。先前关于变性人大脑偏侧化的研究报告称，变性人的大脑偏侧化与他们的性别认同一致，而不是与生物性别一致。 了解为什么大脑处理和记忆情绪信息的方式存在性别差异是很重要的，因为有许多精神障碍具有很大的性别差异，也涉及情绪信息的处理受损。抑郁症和创伤后应激障碍(PTSD)是两种涉及情绪调节障碍的疾病，对一种性别的影响比另一种更大。20%的女性会发生抑郁症，而男性的这一比例为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与性别有关的大脑结构和功能以及认知功能和风格的差异。也有研究表明，杏仁核生理活动的增加似乎与情绪行为有关。其他研究发现，抑郁症与左侧杏仁核活动增强有关，主要见于女性。据报道，跨性别者患抑郁症的比率高于平均水平，他们自杀的风险也更高。抑郁症的高发病率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这样一种观念的影响，即跨性别者身份没有生物学原因。因此，杏仁核对情绪信息的处理与性别之间的联系对于跨性别者来说是至关重要的，因为他们患抑郁症的风险高于平均水平。重要的是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身上的功能，包括变性人。了解更多关于情绪记忆性别差异和相关大脑激活的神经生物学知识，将对这些临床疾病的未来治疗方法的发展具有重要意义。 这项建议将描述一项研究，以检查在使用和不使用激素的情况下，变性人的情绪记忆和相关的大脑激活，以便更多地了解生物性别、激素和为记忆情绪信息而观察到的大脑激活的性二态模式之间的关系。这是一项大脑成像研究，研究了变性人在情绪记忆测试中的大脑激活模式。将对两组跨性别者进行研究，其中12名男性变性人和12名女性变性人。在每组中，6名参与者将接受激素治疗，6名不接受治疗。每个参与者都将参加一天的研究，在这一天中，我们将使用fMRI来评估他们在情绪记忆编码期间杏仁核的激活。从这项研究中获得的知识将提供关于情感记忆和变性人性别差异的神经生物学基础的重要信息，同时进一步了解性别影响的精神障碍。

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.