Alterations in the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus - a specific neural correlate of gender incongruence?

ABSTRACT:

Background

Increasing numbers of adolescents seek help for gender-identity questions. Consequently, requests for medical treatments, such as puberty suppression, are growing. However, studies investigating the neurobiological substrate of gender incongruence (when birth-assigned sex and gender identity do not align) are scarce, and knowledge about the effects of puberty suppression on the developing brain of transgender youth is limited.

Methods

Here we cross-sectionally investigated sex and gender differences in regional fractional anisotropy (FA) as measured by diffusion MR imaging, and the impact of puberty on alterations in the white-matter organization of 35 treatment-naive prepubertal children and 41 adolescents with gender incongruence, receiving puberty suppression.

SUBMITTER: van Heesewijk J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10277722 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature