Three days of Winter School : Sex hormones and the brain
Written by Ju-young Lee
On the first week of February , researchers from around the world gathered in Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University of Tübingen to discuss the relationship between sex hormones and the brain . It was truly inspiring to see clinicians ( gynecologist , psychiatrist , urologist ), neuroscientists , psychologists and biologists actively interacting with each other . As a participant , I really enjoyed the talks and would like to share some studies that were presented .
Ovarian hormone fluctuation as a risk model for postpartum mood disorders . Julia Sacher , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
After giving birth , the estrogen concentration in a women ’ s body drops dramatically by 500 ~ 1000 fold . The talk was on postpartum mood disorder and its relationship with the estrogen drop . Postpartum depression was categorized as mental disorder only in 2013 and is still under-diagnosed . It was nice to see some efforts done to
investigate the disorder .
Mental health effects of hormonal contraceptives . Inger Sundström Poromaa , University of Uppsala
There seems to be an on going discussion about the influence of oral contraceptives on mood . Some report that taking pills may lead to negative mood , even depression , some report that it relieves premenstrual syndrome . The presented study reported that with a small effect size , pills can cause mood symptoms in women with ongoing or previous mood disorder . The speaker also said that educated Swedish women have lower rate of pill usage compared to uneducated women which was interesting .
Menstrual cycle dependent changes in cognitive function . Belinda Pletzer , University of Salzburg
This longitudinal study showed that gray matter volume of hippocampus and basal ganglia changes over the course of menstrual cycle as evidenced by structural MRI studies . They correlated grey matter volume with cognitive function , such as navigation and language tasks . For me , the difficult question is what do the volume changes imply ?
Several talks and posters were focused on sex differences .
Normally , I am ignorant about the topic because it seems impossible to control for confounding variables . After all , what is the whole point of searching for sex differences ? But later I learned that psychiatric disorders appear in different ratios . There are more women suffering from depression and anxiety disorder and more men with autism and ADHD . Perhaps , it is worthwhile taking a note on the different epidemiology of mental disorder between sexes .
One of the participants was a sociologist with a focus on science and technology studies .
Her ongoing research focused on how the transgender brain is seen from a scientists ’ perspective and trans ’ perspective . I think how scientific knowledge is influenced by society and how society is influenced by science is an important topic and should be discussed more often within scientific community .
* ‘ Sex ’ versus ‘ gender ’ The topic is widely debated and there is no concrete answer on how the two words should be used . The reason I chose to use ‘ sex ’ instead of ‘ gender ’ in this article is merely because the event was called ‘ Sex hormone and the brain ’.
Image sources were open source or belong to the author , unless otherwise noted .
References : 1 . Sacher , J , et al . Elevated brain monoamine oxidase A binding in the early postpartum period . Arch Gen Psychiatry 2010 ; 67 : 468- 474 . 2 . Poromaa , IS and Segebladh B . Adverse mood symptoms with oral contraceptives . Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand 2012 ; 91:420- 427 . 3 . Barth C , Villringer A , Sacher J . Sex hormones affect neurotransmitters and shape the adult female brain during hormonal transition periods . Front Neurosci 2015 ; 9:37 .
Ju-young Lee is currently in the Neural and Behavioral Neuroscience Masters Program in Tübingen , Germany .
12 | NEUROMAG | July 2018