Gender transition affects neural correlates of empathy: A resting state functional connectivity study with ultra high-field 7T MR imaging.
- Autor(en)
- M Spies, A Hahn, GS Kranz, R Sladky, U Kaufmann, A Hummer, S Ganger, C Kraus, D Winkler, R Seiger, E Comasco, C Windischberger, S Kasper, R Lanzenberger
- Abstrakt
Sex-steroid hormones have repeatedly been shown to influence empathy, which is in turn reflected in resting state functional connectivity (rsFC). Cross-sex hormone treatment in transgender individuals provides the opportunity to examine changes to rsFC over gender transition. We aimed to investigate whether sex-steroid hormones influence rsFC patterns related to unique aspects of empathy, namely emotion recognition and description as well as emotional contagion. RsFC data was acquired with 7 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging in 24 male-to-female (MtF) and 33 female-to-male (FtM) transgender individuals before treatment, in addition to 33 male- and 44 female controls. Of the transgender participants, 15 MtF and 20 FtM were additionally assessed after 4 weeks and 4 months of treatment. Empathy scores were acquired at the same time-points. MtF differed at baseline from all other groups and assimilated over the course of gender transition in a rsFC network around the supramarginal gyrus, a region central to interpersonal emotion processing. While changes to sex-steroid hormones did not correlate with rsFC in this network, a sex hormone independent association between empathy scores and rsFC was found. Our results underline that 1) MtF transgender persons demonstrate unique rsFC patterns in a network related to empathy and 2) changes within this network over gender transition are likely related to changes in emotion recognition, -description, and -contagion, and are sex-steroid hormone independent.
- Organisation(en)
- Externe Organisation(en)
- Medizinische Universität Wien, Uppsala University
- Journal
- NeuroImage
- Band
- 138
- Seiten
- 257-265
- Anzahl der Seiten
- 9
- ISSN
- 1053-8119
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.05.060
- Publikationsdatum
- 09-2016
- Peer-reviewed
- Ja
- ÖFOS 2012
- 301401 Hirnforschung
- Schlagwörter
- ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
- Neurology, Cognitive Neuroscience
- Link zum Portal
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/7eb0f4a6-e403-4259-b663-0cb01ced55c3