Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, United States.
Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, United States.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2020 Apr;114:104592. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2020.104592. Epub 2020 Jan 25.
Women have a higher risk of developing stress-related disorders compared to men and the experience of a stressful life event is a potent risk-factor. The rodent literature suggests that chronic exposure to stressors as well as 17β-estradiol (E2) can result in alterations in neuronal structure in corticolimbic brain regions, however the translation of these data to humans is limited by the nature of the stressor experienced and issues of brain homology. To address these limitations, we used a well-validated rhesus monkey model of social subordination to examine effects of E2 treatment on subordinate (high stress) and dominant (low stress) female brain structure, including regional gray matter and white matter volumes using structural magnetic resonance imaging. Our results show that one month of E2 treatment in ovariectomized females, compared to control (no) treatment, decreased frontal cortex gray matter volume regardless of social status. In contrast, in the cingulate cortex, an area associated with stress-induced emotional processing, E2 decreased grey matter volume in subordinates but increased it in dominant females. Together these data suggest that physiologically relevant levels of E2 alter cortical gray matter volumes in females after only one month of treatment and interact with chronic social stress to modulate these effects on brain structure.
女性患与压力相关的疾病的风险比男性高，而经历压力生活事件是一个强有力的风险因素。啮齿动物文献表明，慢性暴露于应激源以及 17β-雌二醇（E2）可导致皮质边缘脑区神经元结构的改变，然而，这些数据在人类中的转化受到所经历的应激源的性质和大脑同源性问题的限制。为了解决这些限制，我们使用了一种经过充分验证的恒河猴社会从属模型，来检查 E2 治疗对从属（高压力）和优势（低压力）雌性大脑结构的影响，包括使用结构磁共振成像测量区域灰质和白质体积。我们的结果表明，与对照组（无）相比，一个月的 E2 治疗会导致去卵巢雌性的额皮质灰质体积减少，而不论其社会地位如何。相比之下，在与应激诱导的情绪处理相关的扣带皮层中，E2 减少了从属女性的灰质体积，而增加了优势女性的灰质体积。这些数据表明，在仅仅一个月的治疗后，生理相关水平的 E2 会改变女性的皮质灰质体积，并与慢性社会压力相互作用，调节这些对大脑结构的影响。
