The middle-aged brain: biological sex and sex hormones shape memory circuitry

Jacobs, Emily G.; Goldstein, Jill M.

doi:10.1016/j.cobeha.2018.03.009

Cited by 34 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 85 publications

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“…In particular, men are presumed to respond more strongly to visual sexual stimuli than do women (6). Previous studies indicate differences in how human brain in healthy (27, 28) and disease-states (29, 30) may process information in women and men. However, potential sex-specific neurobiological mechanisms underlying the observation of sexual content are not fully elucidated (31, 32).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural substrates of sexual arousal are not sex dependent

Mitricheva

Kimura

Logothetis

et al. 2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Sexual arousal is a dynamical, highly coordinated neurophysiological process that is often induced by visual stimuli. Numerous studies have proposed that the cognitive processing stage of responding to sexual stimuli is the first stage, in which sex differences occur, and the divergence between men and women has been attributed to differences in the concerted activity of neural networks. The present comprehensive metaanalysis challenges this hypothesis and provides robust quantitative evidence that the neuronal circuitries activated by visual sexual stimuli are independent of biological sex. Sixty-one functional magnetic resonance imaging studies (1,850 individuals) that presented erotic visual stimuli to men and women of different sexual orientation were identified. Coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation was used to conduct metaanalyses. Sensitivity and clustering analyses of averaged neuronal response patterns were performed to investigate robustness of the findings. In contrast to neutral stimuli, sexual pictures and videos induce significant activations in brain regions, including insula, middle occipital, anterior cingulate and fusiform gyrus, amygdala, striatum, pulvinar, and substantia nigra. Cluster analysis suggests stimulus type as the most, and biological sex as the least, predictor for classification. Contrast analysis further shows no significant sex-specific differences within groups. Systematic review of sex differences in gray matter volume of brain regions associated with sexual arousal (3,723 adults) did not show any causal relationship between structural features and functional response to visual sexual stimuli. The neural basis of sexual arousal in humans is associated with sexual orientation yet, contrary to the widely accepted view, is not different between women and men.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural substrates of sexual arousal are not sex dependent

Mitricheva

Kimura

Logothetis

et al. 2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…The gray matter of postmenopausal patients was significantly smaller than that of premenopausal patients in the left middle frontal gyrus, suggesting an impact of estrogen loss on brain structure, which could explain the changes in positive symptoms 105 and cognitive symptoms. 106 Environmental events such as parents dying, social supports dwindling, motherhood becoming permanently impossible, children leaving home, and health declining 77 play a partially causative role, but, according to Jacobs and Goldstein, 107 many of the symptom changes experienced at this time are attributable to the decline of sex hormones.…”

Section: Hormones and Menopausementioning

confidence: 99%

The association between hormones and antipsychotic use: a focus on postpartum and menopausal women

González-Rodríguez

Seeman

2019

Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology

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During the postpartum and menopausal periods of women’s lives, there is a well-established and significant drop of circulating estrogens. This may be the reason why both these periods are associated with an increased risk for onset or exacerbation of psychiatric disorders. Whether symptoms are mainly affective or mainly psychotic, these disorders are frequently treated with antipsychotic medications, which calls for an examination of the relationship between hormone replacement and antipsychotic agents at these time periods. The aim of this narrative review is to summarize what is known about the association of hormones and antipsychotics in the postnatal period and at menopause. In the review, we focus on estrogen and oxytocin hormones and include, for the most part, only papers published within the last 10 years. Both estradiol and oxytocin have at various times been implicated in the etiology of postpartum disorders, and estrogens, sometimes combined with progesterone, have been tested as potential treatments for these conditions. The role of estradiol as an adjunct to antipsychotics in the prevention of postpartum relapses is currently controversial. With respect to oxytocin, studies are lacking. Psychosis in menopausal and postmenopausal women has been successfully treated with estrogens and selective estrogen-receptor modulators, mainly raloxifene, in addition to antipsychotics. Some symptoms appear to respond better than others. No oxytocin study has specifically targeted postmenopausal women. Because of feedback mechanisms, there is a theoretical danger of therapy with exogenous hormones interfering with endogenous secretion and disturbing the balance among inter-related hormones. When used with antipsychotics, hormones may also affect the metabolism and, hence, the brain level of specific antipsychotics. This makes treatment with antipsychotics plus hormones complicated. Dose, timing and route of intervention may all prove critical to efficacy. While much remains unknown, this literature review indicates that, within standard dose ranges, the combination of hormones and antipsychotics for postnatal and menopausal women suffering severe mental distress can be beneficial, and is safe.

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“…In a recent densesampling study from our group, a woman underwent 30 consecutive days of brain imaging and venipuncture across a complete menstrual cycle, revealing estradiol and progesterone's ability to modulate widespread patterns of connectivity across the cortex 37,39 . Given the sensitivity of the cerebral cortex to endogenous fluctuations in sex steroid hormones 33,37,[39][40][41] and accumulating evidence for sex hormone action in the cerebellum 42,43 , here we tested the hypothesis that sex hormones impact the intrinsic day-to-day dynamics of cerebellar circuits.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cerebellar network organization across the human menstrual cycle

Fitzgerald

Pritschet

Santander

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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The cerebellum contains the vast majority of neurons in the brain and houses distinct functional networks that constitute at least two homotopic maps of cerebral networks. It is also a major site of sex steroid hormone action. While the functional organization of the human cerebellum has been characterized, the influence of sex steroid hormones on intrinsic cerebellar network dynamics has yet to be established. Here we investigated the extent to which endogenous fluctuations in estradiol and progesterone alter functional cerebellar networks at rest in a woman densely sampled over a complete menstrual cycle (30 consecutive days). Edgewise regression analysis revealed robust negative associations between progesterone and cerebellar coherence. Graph theory metrics probed sex hormones’ influence on topological brain states, revealing relationships between sex hormones and within-network integration in Ventral Attention, Dorsal Attention, and SomatoMotor Networks. Together these results suggest that the intrinsic dynamics of the cerebellum are intimately tied to day-by-day changes in sex hormones.

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The middle-aged brain: biological sex and sex hormones shape memory circuitry

Cited by 34 publications

References 85 publications

Neural substrates of sexual arousal are not sex dependent

Neural substrates of sexual arousal are not sex dependent

The association between hormones and antipsychotic use: a focus on postpartum and menopausal women

Cerebellar network organization across the human menstrual cycle

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