The present study explores data collected in the psychological evaluation of transgender youth and their families who seek healthcare at the Gender Identity Program. Great psychosocial changes mark the transition from infancy to adulthood. Transgender youth may have these aspects of their developmental stage potentialized. A study was conducted with 23 transgender youth (mean age = 14 ± 2.38 years) and their caregivers. Eleven of the youngsters were assigned male at birth, while 12 were assigned female. The research protocol consisted of a survey and systematization of the data collected in the initial global psychological evaluation performed at the healthcare facility, including house-tree-person (HTP) projective drawings and the parental styles inventory. The present study aimed to explore the data collected during the psychological evaluation of youngsters diagnosed with gender incongruence, relating the HTP projective drawing technique to parental styles and gender trajectories. The results indicate two key points. One evidenced that parental styles could be either preventive or risk components in maintaining adequate socialization in these young people but not in affecting the level of gender dysphoria. The other was that coherence is introduced in the person’s perception of his or her projected self-image and his or her expressed gender as he/she becomes more comfortable in expressing his/her gender identity. Treating youngsters inherently brings ethical issues to clinical practice. Thus, global psychological evaluation tailored to this population is a fundamental resource that the psychology professional can use in consultations with youngsters because this tool brings a global understanding about the natural development cycle, facilitating the formulation of therapeutic conducts and exchanges within interdisciplinary transgender health care teams.

ResumoObjetivo: descrever uma revisão da literatura sobre a importância dos ácidos graxos ômega-3 e da vitamina D na prevenção e tratamento da depressão. Metodologia: essa revisão foi feita no período de agosto, setembro de 2016, incluindo as publicações de 2000 a 2016. Procedeu-se a busca nas bases de dados Pubmed, Science Direct, Bireme e periódicos CAPES com a utilização dos descritores: "ômega-3", "docosahexaenoic acid", "DHA", "eicosapentaenoic acid", "EPA", "vitamin D" e "depression". Resultados: a literatura reporta vários estudos sobre a eficácia dos ácidos graxos ômega-3 no tratamento da depressão. No entanto, existe um número considerável de trabalhos que não demonstram eficácia dos ácidos graxos ômega-3 na depressão. Os fatores responsáveis pelos resultados variados são: modelos experimentais, diferenças de tamanho da amostra, diferenças biológicas e genéticas entre os doentes, a variabilidade ambiental, e variabilidade na resposta à ácidos graxos ômega-3. Em relação a vitamina D, os resultados também são contraditórios, com evidências sugerindo que baixos níveis dessa vitamina podem estar associados a um maior risco de depressão.

An extreme incongruence between sex and gender identity leads individuals with gender dysphoria (GD) to seek cross-sex hormone therapy (CSHT), and gender-affirming surgery (GAS). Although few studies have investigated the effects of CSHT on the brain prior to GAS, no studies in the extant literature have evaluated its impact during hypogonadism in post-GAS individuals. Here, we aimed to evaluate the effects of estradiol on resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) of the sensorimotor cortex (SMC) and basal ganglia following surgical hypogonadism. Eighteen post-GAS (male-to-female) participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and neuropsychiatric and hormonal assessment at two time points (t1, hormonal washout; t2, CSHT reintroduction). Based on the literature, the thalamus was selected as a seed, while the SMC and the dorsolateral striatum were targets for seed-based functional connectivity (sbFC). A second sbFC investigation consisted of a whole-brain voxel exploratory analysis again using the thalamus as a seed. A final complementary data-driven approach using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) was conducted to identify a potential seed for further sbFC analyses. An increase in the rs-FC between the left thalamus and the left SCM/putamen followed CSHT. MVPA identified a cluster within the subcallosal cortex (SubCalC) representing the highest variation in peak activation between time points. Setting the SubCalC as a seed, whole-brain analysis showed a decoupling between the SubCalC and the medial frontal cortex during CSHT. These results indicate that CSHT with estradiol post-GAS, modulates rs-FC in regions engaged in cognitive, emotional, and sensorimotor processes.