Exogenous testosterone administration is associated with differential neural response to unfamiliar peer's and own caregiver's voice in transgender adolescents.

ABSTRACT: Changes in gonadal hormones during puberty are thought to potentiate adolescents' social re-orientation away from caregivers and towards peers. This study investigated the effect of testosterone on neural processing of emotional (vocal) stimuli by unfamiliar peers vs. parents, in transgender boys receiving exogenous testosterone as a gender-affirming hormone (GAH+) or not (GAH-). During fMRI, youth heard angry and happy vocal expressions spoken by their caregiver and an unfamiliar teenager. Youth also self-reported on closeness with friends and parents. Whole-brain analyses (controlling for age) revealed that GAH+ youth showed blunted neural response to caregivers' angry voices-and heightened response to unfamiliar teenage angry voices-in the anterior cingulate cortex. This pattern was rev

SUBMITTER: Morningstar M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9841356 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature