Sex-specific trajectories of neurobiological maturation during adolescence

描述（由申请人提供）：众所周知，青春期是一个戏剧性的神经成熟的时期，伴随着认知，社会功能和情绪调节的改善。此外，横断面研究表明，与青春期相关的性腺激素水平上升会影响情绪和食欲的处理以及大脑边缘系统的结构和功能。考虑到青春期精神病理学的上升，青春期边缘脑区的激素激活，加上性二态性前额调节系统的不成熟，可能导致青少年以性别特异性方式对精神病理学的易感性提高;然而，几乎没有纵向工作来充分探讨这一概念。为此，本研究将在一年后纵向跟踪120名健康的12-15岁男性和女性青少年，并进行丰富的多模式神经成像和行为表征。该评估将包括工作记忆和决策过程中的功能神经成像、静息状态功能神经成像、弥散张量成像、神经认知评估、情绪/行为/人格评估和血清激素测定。使用多模态纵向设计，我们的目标是更好地了解青春期大脑的性别特异性结构和功能神经成熟，并探索与性腺激素，认知和行为的关联。增加对这些关系的理解可能有助于解释性别特异性的脆弱性，更好地将受生殖影响的发展途径与不受生殖影响的发展途径分开，阐明赋予风险和恢复力的个体特征，并可能最终允许开发旨在减少青少年精神病理学的有针对性的治疗策略。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): It is well-established that adolescence is a time of dramatic neuromaturation, paralleled by improvements in cognition, social functioning, and emotional regulation. In addition, cross-sectional studies have demonstrated that rising gonadal hormone levels associated with puberty influence emotional and appetitive processing and limbic brain structure and functioning. Given the rise in psychopathology during adolescence, the hormonal activation of limbic brain regions during puberty, coupled with the immaturity of sexually dimorphic prefrontal regulatory systems, may contribute to heightened adolescent vulnerability for psychopathology in a sex- specific manner; however, little longitudinal work has been done to fully explore this notion. To that end, this study will longitudinally follow 120 healthy, 12-15-year-old male and female adolescents after one year with a rich, multimodal neuroimaging and behavioral characterization. This assessment will include functional neuroimaging during working memory and decision making, resting state functional neuroimaging, diffusion tensor imaging, neurocognitive assessment, mood/behavior/personality assessment, and serum hormone assays. Using a multi-modal longitudinal design, we aim to better understand sex-specific structural and functional neuromaturation of the brain during adolescence and to explore associations with gonadal hormones, cognition, and behavior. Increased understanding of these relationships may help to explain sex- specific vulnerability, better dissociate hormonally influenced developmental pathways from those that are not, elucidate individual characteristics conferring risk and resilience, and may ultimately permit the development of targeted treatment strategies aimed at reducing adolescent psychopathology.