Zwaan Isabel S, Felmingham Kim, Vijayakumar Nandi, Patton George, Mundy Lisa, Byrne Michelle L, Simmons Julian, Whittle Sarah
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Australia; Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne, Australia.
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Australia.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2022 Dec;146:105943. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2022.105943. Epub 2022 Sep 22.
One-third of adolescents are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder by age 16, with female adolescents twice as likely to experience an internalizing (i.e., depression or anxiety) disorder as their male peers. Individual differences in pubertal factors may partially underlie this disparity, potentially via the role of pubertal hormones in shaping brain development. While research has examined links between estradiol levels and brain structure, individual variation in estradiol levels has not been considered. Using longitudinal data from 44 female adolescents (baseline age M = 11.7; follow-up age M= 13.3), we examined associations between both average estradiol and estradiol variability, and brain gray matter structure at baseline. We used a hypothesis-driven region of interest (ROI) approach focusing on subcortical and ventromedial prefrontal regions, in addition to an exploratory whole-brain analysis. We also investigated whether brain structure mediated the association between estradiol measures and internalizing (i.e., anxious and depressive) symptoms at follow-up. ROI analyses revealed a significant negative association between estradiol variability and thickness of the right medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC, β = -0.39, FDR corrected p = .010). There were, however, no significant associations between average estradiol or estradiol variability and internalizing symptoms, nor was there evidence of mediation. Our results indicate that increased variation in estradiol levels across a month is associated with decreased cortical thickness in a brain region implicated in emotion processing, although implications for mental health are unclear. Findings, however, highlight the importance of considering individual variation in estradiol when examining links to brain development.
三分之一的青少年在16岁前被诊断出患有精神疾病，其中女性青少年出现内化性（即抑郁或焦虑）障碍的可能性是男性同龄人的两倍。青春期因素的个体差异可能是造成这种差异的部分原因，这可能是通过青春期激素在塑造大脑发育过程中的作用实现的。虽然已有研究探讨了雌二醇水平与脑结构之间的联系，但尚未考虑雌二醇水平的个体差异。我们利用44名女性青少年的纵向数据（基线年龄M = 11.7岁；随访年龄M = 13.3岁），研究了平均雌二醇水平和雌二醇变异性与基线时脑灰质结构之间的关联。除了进行探索性全脑分析外，我们还采用了一种基于假设驱动的感兴趣区域（ROI）方法，重点关注皮质下和腹内侧前额叶区域。我们还研究了脑结构是否介导了随访时雌二醇测量值与内化性（即焦虑和抑郁）症状之间的关联。ROI分析显示，雌二醇变异性与右侧眶额内侧皮质（OFC）厚度之间存在显著负相关（β = -0.39，FDR校正p = 0.010）。然而，平均雌二醇水平或雌二醇变异性与内化性症状之间没有显著关联，也没有中介作用的证据。我们的研究结果表明，一个月内雌二醇水平变化增加与涉及情绪处理的脑区皮质厚度减少有关，尽管对心理健康的影响尚不清楚。然而，研究结果强调了在研究与大脑发育的联系时考虑雌二醇个体差异的重要性。
