1. Characterization of the 1H-MRS Metabolite Spectra in Transgender Men with Gender Dysphoria and Cisgender People
- Author
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Antonio Guillamón, Sven C. Mueller, Guy T'Sjoen, Meltem Kiyar, Sourav Bhaduri, and Sarah Collet
- Subjects
Gender dysphoria ,sex differences ,medicine.medical_specialty ,SEX-DIFFERENCES ,STRESS ,myo-inositol ,MR SPECTROSCOPY ,Metabolite ,Social Sciences ,Hippocampus ,Creatine ,Article ,GLUTAMATE ,03 medical and health sciences ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,AGE ,0302 clinical medicine ,Internal medicine ,Transgender ,Medicine and Health Sciences ,medicine ,Choline ,030304 developmental biology ,0303 health sciences ,neuroimaging ,business.industry ,General Medicine ,Human brain ,MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-SPECTROSCOPY ,HUMAN BRAIN ,medicine.disease ,magnetic resonance spectroscopy ,AMYGDALA ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Endocrinology ,creatine ,chemistry ,transgender men ,Medicine ,N-acetyl-aspartate ,HEALTH ,Age of onset ,business ,TO-FEMALE TRANSSEXUALS ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Much research has been conducted on sexual differences of the human brain to determine whether and to what extent a brain gender exists. Consequently, a variety of studies using different neuroimaging techniques attempted to identify the existence of a brain phenotype in people with gender dysphoria (GD). However, to date, brain sexual differences at the metabolite level using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) have not been explored in transgender people. In this study, 28 cisgender men (CM) and 34 cisgender women (CW) and 29 transgender men with GD (TMGD) underwent 1H-MRS at 3 Tesla MRI to characterize common brain metabolites. Specifically, levels of N–acetyl aspartate (NAA), choline (Cho), creatine (Cr), glutamate and glutamine (Glx), and myo-inositol + glycine (mI + Gly) were assessed in two brain regions, the amygdala-anterior hippocampus and the lateral parietal cortex. The results indicated a sex-assigned at birth pattern for Cho/Cr in the amygdala of TMGD. In the parietal cortex, a sex-assigned at birth and an intermediate pattern were found. Though assessed post-hoc, exploration of the age of onset of GD in TMGD demonstrated within-group differences in absolute NAA and relative Cho/Cr levels, suggestive for a possible developmental trend. While brain metabolite levels in TMGD resembled those of CW, some interesting findings, such as modulation of metabolite concentrations by age of onset of GD, warrant future inquiry.
- Published
- 2021
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