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Gender identity disorder (GID) refers to transsexual individuals who feel that their assigned biological gender is incongruent with their gender identity and this cannot be explained by any physical intersex condition. There is growing scientific interest in the last decades in studying the neuroanatomy and brain functions of transsexual individuals to better understand both the neuroanatomical features of transsexualism and the background of gender identity. So far, results are inconclusive but in general, transsexualism has been associated with a distinct neuroanatomical pattern. Studies mainly focused on male to female (MTF) transsexuals and there is scarcity of data acquired on female to male (FTM) transsexuals. Thus, our aim was to analyze structural MRI data with voxel based morphometry (VBM) obtained from both FTM and MTF transsexuals (n = 17) and compare them to the data of 18 age matched healthy control subjects (both males and females). We found differences in the regional grey matter (GM) structure of transsexual compared with control subjects, independent from their biological gender, in the cerebellum, the left angular gyrus and in the left inferior parietal lobule. Additionally, our findings showed that in several brain areas, regarding their GM volume, transsexual subjects did not differ significantly from controls sharing their gender identity but were different from those sharing their biological gender (areas in the left and right precentral gyri, the left postcentral gyrus, the left posterior cingulate, precuneus and calcarinus, the right cuneus, the right fusiform, lingual, middle and inferior occipital, and inferior temporal gyri). These results support the notion that structural brain differences exist between transsexual and healthy control subjects and that majority of these structural differences are dependent on the biological gender.
Pubmed ID: 24391851 RIS Download
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This is the website of the Structural Brain Mapping Group at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Jena. Our principal research focuses on the development of methods for structural brain imaging and their application. Specific areas of interest include the investigation of structural brain plasticity and schizophrenia research. Regional structural brain changes are among the most robust biological findings in schizophrenia, yet the underlying pathophysiological changes remain poorly understood. Recent evidence suggests that abnormal neuronal/dendritic plasticity is related to alterations in membrane lipids. We examined whether serum activity of membrane lipid remodeling/repairing cytosolic phospholipase A2 (PLA2) were related to regional brain structure in magnetic resonance images (MRI). The study involved 24 schizophrenia patients, who were either drug-nave or off antipsychotic medication, and 25 healthy controls. Using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis of T1-high-resolution MRI-images, we correlated both gray matter and white matter changes with serum PLA2-activity. PLA2 activity was increased in patients, consistent with previous findings. VBM group comparison of patients vs. controls showed abnormalities of frontal and medial temporal cortices/hippocampus, and left middle/superior temporal gyrus in first-episode patients. Group comparison of VBM/ PLA2-correlations revealed a distinct pattern of disease-related interactions between gray/white matter changes in patients and PLA2-activity: in first-episode patients (n = 13), PLA2-activity was associated with structural alterations in the left prefrontal cortex and the bilateral thalamus. Recurrent-episode patients (n = 11) showed a wide-spread pattern of associations between PLA2-activity and structural changes in the left (less right) prefrontal and inferior parietal cortex, the left (less right) thalamus and caudate nucleus, the left medial temporal and orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingulum, and the cerebellum. Our findings demonstrate a potential association between membrane lipid biochemistry and focal brain structural abnormalities in schizophrenia. Differential patterns in first-episode vs. chronic patients might be related to PLA2-increase at disease-onset reflecting localized regenerative activity, whereas correlations in recurrent- episode patients might point to less specific neurodegenerative aspects of disease progression.
View all literature mentionsA viewing program for Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM2, SPM5 and SPM8). p-value slider, displays multiple images at a time and can be used to build Region of Interest (ROI) masks. For a given region you can find the anatomical name and search the selected region in online database (wiki, Google scholar and PubMed).
View all literature mentionsA toolbox for SPM which provides routines for region of interest analysis. Features include region of interest definition, combination of regions of interest with simple algebra, extraction of data for regions with and without SPM preprocessing (scaling, filtering), and statistical analyses of ROI data using the SPM statistics machinery.
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