Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
Department of Psychology and Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2024 Dec;70:101473. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2024.101473. Epub 2024 Nov 5.
Puberty and associated changes in pubertal hormones influence structural brain development. Hormones such as dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and progesterone remain understudied, and it remains unclear how these aspects of puberty contribute uniquely to structural brain development. We used the Human Connectome Project in Development cross-sectional sample of 1304 youth (aged 5-21 years) to investigate unique contributions of sex, age, pubertal stage, DHEA, testosterone, estradiol, and progesterone to cortical thickness, surface area, and subcortical volume development within functionally-relevant networks. Sex and age explain the most unique variance in all three aspects of structural development. Pubertal stage and pubertal hormones uniquely contribute more to cortical surface area, compared to thickness. Among the pubertal hormones, progesterone contributed unique variance to surface area in the default mode network, as well as to thickness in the orbito-affective network. Pubertal mechanisms also contributed unique variance to subcortical volumes. This demonstrates unique relations of understudied pubertal hormones to brain structure development and may help understand risk for psychopathology.
青春期和相关的青春期激素变化会影响大脑结构的发育。脱氢表雄酮（DHEA）和孕酮等激素的研究仍不够充分，目前尚不清楚青春期的这些方面如何独特地促进大脑结构的发育。我们使用人类连接组计划发展的横断面样本，其中包括 1304 名年轻人（年龄在 5 至 21 岁之间），以研究性别、年龄、青春期阶段、DHEA、睾丸激素、雌二醇和孕酮对皮质厚度、表面积和功能相关网络内的皮质下体积发育的独特贡献。性别和年龄解释了结构发育所有三个方面的最大独特差异。与厚度相比，青春期阶段和青春期激素对皮质表面积的独特贡献更大。在青春期激素中，孕酮对默认模式网络中的表面积和眶额网络中的厚度有独特的影响。青春期机制也对皮质下体积有独特的影响。这表明研究较少的青春期激素与大脑结构发育有独特的关系，这可能有助于理解精神病理学的风险。
