Endocrine and Neurobiologic Events Accompanying Puberty

这项要求很高的纵向研究的招募工作尚处于早期阶段，部分原因是磁共振成像（MRI）测量这些儿童性腺体积所需的成像技术的成功开发，需要指定的功能性MRI在这项纵向、重复测量研究中用于脑成像的表现，以及成功地试点了几种脑激活范式来测量特定的神经系统(例如，奖励系统)贯穿儿童青春期。尽管如此，在过去的几个月里，我们筛选了几个被排除在本研究之外的儿童，因为他们在实际年龄的一年内没有表现出正常的生长速度。因此，这些参与者表现出早期性腺活动的证据，并且可能是与他们的实际年龄或Tanner阶段不一致的亚临床形式的性早熟。我们希望研究这些性腺活动的早期变化对大脑结构和功能的影响。大多数关于青春期的研究都没有将骨龄纳入其选择标准，而伴随骨龄相对于实际年龄升高的脑功能改变的发现将是指导未来青春期研究的重要方法学考虑。

Recruitment for this demanding longitudinal study is in its early stages due in part to the successful development of imaging techniques required to measure gonadal volume in these children with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), the need for a designated functional MRI to be in place for the performance of brain imaging in this longitudinal, repeated measures study, and the successful piloting of several brain-activation paradigms to measure specific neural systems (e.g., the reward system) across puberty in children. Nonetheless, in the past few months, we have screened several children who were excluded from this study because they did not display a normal tempo of growth as determined by skeletal age within one year of chronologic age. Thus, these participants showed evidence of early gonadal activity, and possibly, a subclinical form of precocious puberty that was not consistent with their chronologic age or their Tanner Stage. We wish to investigate the effects of these early changes in gonadal activity on brain structure and function. Most studies of puberty do not include bone age in their selection criteria and findings of alterations in brain function accompanying elevated bone age relative to chronologic age will be an important methodologic consideration to guide future studies of puberty.