Bender Institute of Neuroimaging, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Otto-Behaghel-Str. 10H, 35394 Giessen, Germany.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2012 Oct;7(7):819-30. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsr063. Epub 2011 Oct 11.
In emotional learning tasks, sex differences, stress effects and an interaction of these two moderators have often been observed. The sex hormones estradiol (E2) and progesterone (P4) vary over the menstrual cycle. We tested groups with different sex hormone status: 39 men, 30 women in the luteal phase (LU, high E2+P4) and 29 women taking oral contraceptives (OC, low E2+P4). They received either 30 mg cortisol or placebo prior to instructed differential fear conditioning consisting of neutral conditioned stimuli (CS) and an electrical stimulation (unconditioned stimulus; UCS). One figure (CS+) was paired with the UCS, the other figure (CS-) never. During extinction, no electrical stimulation was administered. Regarding fear acquisition, results showed higher skin conductance and higher brain responses to the CS+ compared to the CS- in several structures that were not modulated by cortisol or sex hormones. However, OC women exhibited higher CS+/CS- differentiations than men and LU women in the amygdala, thalamus, anterior cingulate and ventromedial prefrontal cortex during extinction. The suppression of endogenous sex hormones by OC seems to alter neuronal correlates of extinction. The observation that extinction is influenced by the current sex hormone availability is relevant for future studies and might also be clinically important.
在情感学习任务中，经常观察到性别差异、应激效应以及这两个调节因素的相互作用。性激素雌二醇（E2）和孕酮（P4）随月经周期而变化。我们测试了具有不同性激素状态的组：39 名男性、30 名黄体期（LU，高 E2+P4）的女性和 29 名服用口服避孕药（OC，低 E2+P4）的女性。他们在接受指导的差异恐惧条件反射之前接受了 30 毫克皮质醇或安慰剂，该条件反射由中性条件刺激（CS）和电刺激（非条件刺激；UCS）组成。一个图形（CS+）与 UCS 配对，另一个图形（CS-）从不配对。在消退过程中，不进行电刺激。关于恐惧习得，结果显示与 CS-相比，在几个结构中，皮肤电导率更高，对 CS+的大脑反应更高，而皮质醇或性激素没有调节。然而，在消退过程中，OC 女性在杏仁核、丘脑、前扣带和腹内侧前额叶皮层中的 CS+/CS-分化高于男性和 LU 女性。OC 对内源性性激素的抑制似乎改变了消退的神经元相关性。观察到，当前性激素的可用性会影响消退，这对于未来的研究很重要，也可能具有临床意义。
