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

全世界每天有数百万妇女服用口服避孕药。没有其他避孕药对社会产生如此巨大的影响，主要是使妇女能够控制和预防怀孕，从而挑战社会习俗和性别陈规定型观念。虽然已经积累了大量的证据表明，内源性类固醇会影响人类行为的广泛范围，但对OC摄入的心理和神经生物学影响知之甚少。然而，现有的少数研究指出了社会行为的重大变化，这可能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，性类固醇影响性欲和性唤起，并改变奖励过程。因此，性类固醇的浓度对女性生活的一个非常重要的方面有着至关重要的影响：配偶选择和交配偏好。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和大脑反应的影响。为此，将研究3组女性：1）自然骑自行车的女性，2）首次测量后开始服用OC的女性，3）服用OC超过12个月的女性。所有的女性将接受一个接近回避任务，利用功能性神经成像技术针对性欲。此外，我们将评估脑容量和静息状态功能连接。为了评估OC摄入引起的变化，将对所有女性进行两次测量，以突出OC摄入3个月后的短期影响。此外，周期和OC摄入量依赖激素波动的性能和神经成像参数（神经激活，静息状态功能连接和灰质形态）的影响也将分析。本项目的重点是结合和随后的整合行为，主观，内分泌和神经数据对女性的社会行为。这将是第一项研究，以解决OC摄入量对结合不同神经成像参数（功能激活，静息状态功能连接和脑容量）以及行为表现的几个水平的影响。通过这样做，OC摄入的心理和神经生物学影响将被表征。

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.