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.

该副本是利用众多研究子项目之一 由NIH/NCRR资助的中心赠款提供的资源。子弹和 调查员（PI）可能已经从其他NIH来源获得了主要资金， 因此可以在其他清晰的条目中代表。列出的机构是 对于中心，这不一定是调查员的机构。 一些研究表明，男女如何处理和响应情感信息存在很大的性别差异。最近，关于大脑区域的性二态性，有很多研究称为杏仁核。杏仁核参与了情感和唤醒记忆的回忆。这些研究得出的结论是，男女在杏仁核的不同半球上处理情绪记忆。在女性中，杏仁核的激活发生在左半球，当编码情绪记忆和杏仁核的右半球时。此外，几项研究表明，可能存在神经生物学的基础，这表明跨性别者的生物组织与其性别认同更相似，而不是与其生物学性别相似。对变性人中大脑横向化的事先研究报告说，变性人具有脑脑侧向化，与其性别认同而不是生物学性别一致。 理解为什么大脑过程中存在性别差异，并记住情感信息很重要，因为有许多精神疾病具有较大的性别差异，并且还涉及情感信息的处理受损。涉及情绪失调并影响到另一个性别的两个例子是抑郁症和创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）。抑郁症发生在20％的女性中，而男性为10％。这种性别差异的确切原因尚不清楚，但是建议它是由于大脑结构和功能以及认知功能和样式的性别差异所致。还有人提出，杏仁核中升高的生理活性似乎与情感行为有关。其他研究发现，抑郁症与左杏仁核的活性增强有关，主要在女性中发现。据报道，跨性别社区的抑郁症的平均率高，自杀的风险也更高。这种较高的抑郁症发生率在很大程度上受社会规范和信念的影响，部分受到这样一种观念的影响，即没有生物学原因是跨性别认同的根本原因。因此，由于其高于平均抑郁症的风险，情感信息和性别的杏仁核处理之间的联系至关重要。 重要的是要进一步研究杏仁核的神经生物学及其与抑郁症的关系，并了解其在包括跨性别者在内的每个人的功能。了解有关情绪记忆和相关大脑激活中性别差异的神经生物学的更多信息，对于这些临床疾病的未来治疗发展至关重要。 该提案将描述一项研究，以检查跨性别受试者的情绪记忆和相关的大脑激活，以了解有关生物性别，激素与记忆情绪信息的大脑激活的性别二态性模式之间的关系。这是一项大脑成像研究，研究了跨性别者情绪记忆测试期间大脑激活的模式。将研究两组跨性别者，12个男性到女性变性者，而女性则是男性跨性别者。在每个组中，6个参与者将接受激素治疗，而6则不会。每个参与者将参加一个学习日，我们将使用fMRI评估他们在情绪记忆编码期间的杏仁核激活。从这项研究中获得的知识将提供有关情绪记忆以及跨性别者性别差异的神经生物学潜在的重要信息，同时进一步发展有关性别影响的精神疾病的知识。