BRAIN PROCESSING OF EMOTIONAL INFORMATION IN TRANSGENDER INDIVIDUALS

跨性别者的大脑处理情感信息

• 批准号: 8166984
• 负责人: JULIE A DUMAS
• 金额: $ 0.34万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT & ST AGRIC COLLEGE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-03-01 至 2011-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8166984
• 关键词: Affect; Amygdaloid structure; Area; Behavior; Belief; Biological; Brain; Brain imaging; Cerebrum; Clinical Treatment; Communities; Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects Database; Disease; Emotional; Emotions; Female; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Funding; Future; Gender; Gender Identity; Gonadal Steroid Hormones; Grant; Hormones; Incidence; Individual; Institution; Knowledge; Learning; Left; Link; Memory; Mental Depression; Mental disorders; Neurobiology; Participant; Pattern; Physiological; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders; Process; Reporting; Research; Research Personnel; Resources; Risk; Sex Characteristics; Source; Structure; Testing; United States National Institutes of Health; Woman; cognitive function; male; memory encoding; men; sex; sexual dimorphism; suicidal risk; therapy development; transgender

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.

该子项目是利用该技术的众多研究子项目之一 资源由 NIH/NCRR 资助的中心拨款提供。子项目和 研究者 (PI) 可能已从 NIH 的另一个来源获得主要资金， 因此可以在其他 CRISP 条目中表示。列出的机构是 对于中心来说，它不一定是研究者的机构。 一些研究表明，女性和男性在处理和回应情绪信息的方式上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态性的研究。杏仁核参与情感和唤起记忆的回忆。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中处理的。在女性中，编码情绪记忆时，杏仁核激活发生在左半球；而在男性中，杏仁核激活发生在右半球。此外，一些研究表明，跨性别身份可能有神经生物学基础，这表明跨性别个体的生物组织与其性别认同比其生物性别更相似。先前对变性人的大脑偏侧化进行的研究表明，变性人的大脑偏侧化与其性别认同一致，而不是与生物性别一致。 了解大脑处理和记忆情绪信息的方式为何存在性别差异非常重要，因为许多精神疾病存在很大的性别差异，并且还涉及情绪信息处理受损。抑郁症和创伤后应激障碍 (PTSD) 是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的两个例子。 20% 的女性患有抑郁症，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大脑结构和功能以及认知功能和风格方面的性别相关差异造成的。也有人认为，杏仁核生理活动的升高似乎与情绪行为有关。其他研究发现，抑郁症与主要见于女性的左侧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是受到跨性别身份不存在生物学原因这一观念的影响。因此，杏仁核处理情感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。 进一步研究杏仁核的神经生物学及其与抑郁症的关系，并了解其在每个人（包括跨性别者）中的功能非常重要。更多地了解情绪记忆和相关大脑激活中性别差异的神经生物学对于未来开发这些临床疾病的治疗方法非常重要。 该提案将描述一项研究，检查跨性别受试者在激素开启和关闭状态下的情绪记忆和相关大脑激活，以便更多地了解生物性别、激素和为记住情绪信息而观察到的大脑激活的性别二态模式之间的关系。这是一项大脑成像研究，检查跨性别者情绪记忆测试期间的大脑激活模式。将研究两组变性人，12 名男性变女性变性人和 12 名女性变男性变性人。每组中有 6 名参与者将接受激素治疗，另外 6 名参与者则不接受激素治疗。每位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杏仁核的激活情况。从这项研究中获得的知识将提供有关情绪记忆性别差异以及跨性别个体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疾病。