Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Department of Obstetrics-Gynecology, McGill University Health Center, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
J Neuroendocrinol. 2019 Apr;31(4):e12698. doi: 10.1111/jne.12698. Epub 2019 Mar 13.
Oestradiol is known to play an important role in the developing human brain, although little is known about the entire network of potential regions that might be affected and how these effects may vary from childhood to early adulthood, which in turn can explain sexually differentiated behaviours. In the present study, we examined the relationships between oestradiol, cortico-amygdalar structural covariance, and cognitive or behavioural measures typically showing sex differences (verbal/spatial skills, anxious-depressed symptomatology) in 152 children and adolescents (aged 6-22 years). Cortico-amygdalar structural covariance shifted from positive to negative across the age range. Oestradiol was found to diminish the impact of age on cortico-amygdalar covariance for the pre-supplementary motor area/frontal eye field and retrosplenial cortex (across the age range), as well as for the posterior cingulate cortex (in older children). Moreover, the influence of oestradiol on age-related cortico-amygdalar networks was associated with higher word identification and spatial working memory (across the age range), as well as higher reading comprehension (in older children), although it did not impact anxious-depressed symptoms. There were no significant sex effects on any of the above relationships. These findings confirm the importance of developmental timing on oestradiol-related effects and hint at the non-sexually dimorphic role of oestradiol-related cortico-amygdalar structural networks in aspects of cognition distinct from emotional processes.
雌激素在人类大脑发育中起着重要作用，尽管人们对可能受影响的潜在区域的整个网络以及这些影响如何从儿童期到成年早期变化知之甚少，而这些变化反过来又可以解释性别差异的行为。在本研究中，我们研究了 152 名儿童和青少年（年龄在 6-22 岁之间）中雌激素、皮质-杏仁核结构协方差与认知或行为测量之间的关系，这些测量通常表现出性别差异（言语/空间技能、焦虑抑郁症状）。皮质-杏仁核结构协方差在整个年龄范围内从正相关变为负相关。研究发现，雌激素降低了年龄对前补充运动区/额眼区和后扣带回皮质（整个年龄范围）以及后扣带回皮质（在年龄较大的儿童中）皮质-杏仁核协方差的影响。此外，雌激素对与年龄相关的皮质-杏仁核网络的影响与较高的单词识别和空间工作记忆（整个年龄范围）以及较高的阅读理解（在年龄较大的儿童中）有关，尽管它不会影响焦虑抑郁症状。在上述任何关系中，都没有显著的性别影响。这些发现证实了发育时间对雌激素相关影响的重要性，并暗示了雌激素相关皮质-杏仁核结构网络在认知方面的非性别二态作用，与情感过程不同。
