Associations between anxiety, body mass index, and sex hormones in women

Background: Several studies have shown a positive association between anxiety and obesity, particularly in women. We aimed to study whether sex hormone alterations related to obesity might play a role in this association. Patients and methods: Data for this study were obtained from a population-based cohort study (the LIFE-Adult-Study). A total of 3,124 adult women (970 premenopausal and 2,154 postmenopausal) were included into the analyses. The anxiety symptomatology was assessed using the GAD-7 questionnaire (cut-off ≥ 10 points). Sex hormones were measured from fasting serum samples. Results: We did not find significant differences in anxiety prevalence in premenopausal obese women compared with normal-weight controls (4.8% vs. 5.5%). Both obesity and anxiety symptomatology were separately associated with the same sex hormone alteration in premenopausal women: higher total testosterone level (0.97 ± 0.50 in obese vs. 0.86 ± 0.49 nmol/L in normal-weight women, p = 0.026 and 1.04 ± 0.59 in women with vs. 0.88 ± 0.49 nmol/L in women without anxiety symptomatology, p = 0.023). However, women with anxiety symptomatology had non-significantly higher estradiol levels than women without anxiety symptomatology (548.0 ± 507.6 vs. 426.2 ± 474.0 pmol/L), whereas obesity was associated with lower estradiol levels compared with those in normal-weight group (332.7 ± 386.5 vs. 470.8 ± 616.0 pmol/L). Women with anxiety symptomatology had also significantly higher testosterone and estradiol composition (p = 0.006). No associations of sex hormone levels and BMI with anxiety symptomatology in postmenopausal women were found. Conclusions: Although both obesity and anxiety symptomatology were separately associated with higher testosterone level, there was an opposite impact of anxiety and obesity on estradiol levels in premenopausal women. We did not find an evidence that the sex hormone alterations related to obesity are playing a significant role in anxiety symptomatology in premenopausal women. This could be the explanation why we did not find an association between obesity and anxiety. In postmenopausal women, other mechanisms seem to work than in the premenopausal group

Dietary and serum tyrosine, white matter microstructure and inter-individual variability in executive functions in overweight adults: Relation to sex/gender and age

Tyrosine (tyr), the precursor of the neurotransmitter dopamine, is known to modulate cognitive functions including executive attention. Tyr supplementation is suggested to influence dopamine-modulated cognitive performance. However, results are inconclusive regarding the presence or strength and also the direction of the association between tyr and cognitive function. This pre-registered cross-sectional analysis investigates whether diet-associated serum tyr relates to executive attention performance, and whether this relationship is moderated by differences in white matter microstructure. 59 healthy, overweight, young to middle-aged adults (20 female, 28.3 ± 6.6 years, BMI: 27.3 ± 1.5 kg/m2) drawn from a longitudinal study reported dietary habits, donated blood and completed diffusion-weighted brain magnetic resonance imaging and the attention network test. Main analyses were performed using linear regressions and non-parametric voxel-wise inference testing. Confirmatory analyses did neither support an association between dietary and serum tyr nor a relationship between relative serum tyr/large neutral amino acids (LNAA) levels or white matter microstructure and executive attention performance. However, exploratory analyses revealed higher tyr intake, higher serum tyr and better executive attention performance in the male sex/gender group. In addition, older age was associated with higher dietary tyr intake and lower fractional anisotropy in a widespread cluster across the brain. Finally, a positive association between relative serum tyr/LNAA and executive attention performance was found in the male sex/gender group when accounting for age effects. Our analysis advances the field of dopamine-modulated cognitive functions by revealing sex/gender and age differences which might be diet-related. Longitudinal or intervention studies and larger sample sizes are needed to provide more reliable evidence for links between tyr and executive attention

Association of postpartum maternal mood with infant speech perception at 2 and 6.5 months of age

Importance: Language development builds on speech perception, with early disruptions increasing the risk for later language difficulties. Although a major postpartum depressive episode is associated with language development, this association has not been investigated among infants of mothers experiencing a depressed mood at subclinical levels after birth, even though such a mood is frequently present in the first weeks after birth. Understanding whether subclinical depressed maternal mood after birth is associated with early language development is important given opportunities of coping strategies for subclinical depressed mood.Objective: To examine whether depressed maternal mood at subclinical levels 2 months after birth is associated with infant speech perception trajectories from ages 2 to 6.5 months.Design, setting, and participants: In this longitudinal cohort study conducted between January 1, 2018, and October 31, 2019, 46 healthy, monolingual German mother-infant dyads were tested. The sample was recruited from the infants database of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Initial statistical analysis was performed between January 1 and March 31, 2021; the moderation analysis (results reported herein) was conducted between July 1 and July 31, 2022.Exposures: Mothers reported postpartum mood via the German version of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (higher scores indicated higher levels of depressed mood, with a cutoff of 13 points indicating a high probability of clinical depression) when their infants were 2 months old.Main outcomes and measures: Electrophysiological correlates of infant speech perception (mismatch response to speech stimuli) were tested when the infants were aged 2 months (initial assessment) and 6.5 months (follow-up).Results: A total of 46 mothers (mean [SD] age, 32.1 [3.8] years) and their 2-month-old children (mean [SD] age, 9.6 [1.2] weeks; 23 girls and 23 boys) participated at the initial assessment, and 36 mothers (mean [SD] age, 32.2 [4.1] years) and their then 6.5-month-old children (mean [SD] age, 28.4 [1.5 weeks; 18 girls and 18 boys) participated at follow-up. Moderation analyses revealed that more depressed maternal subclinical postpartum mood (mean [SD] Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale score, 4.8 [3.6]) was associated with weaker longitudinal changes of infants' electrophysiological brain responses to syllable pitch speech information from ages 2 to 6.5 months (coefficient: 0.68; 95% CI, 0.03-1.33; P = .04).Conclusions and relevance: The results of this cohort study suggest that infant speech perception trajectories are correlated with subclinical depressed mood in postpartum mothers. This finding lays the groundwork for future research on early support for caregivers experiencing depressed mood to have a positive association with children's language development

Multicore fibers with 10 and 16 single-mode cores for the visible spectrum

We report multicore fibers (MCFs) with 10 and 16 linearly distributed cores with single-mode operation in the visible spectrum. The average propagation loss of the cores is 0.06 dB/m at λ = 445 nm and < 0.03 dB/m at wavelengths longer than 488 nm. The low inter-core crosstalk and nearly identical performance of the cores make these MCFs suitable for spatial division multiplexing in the visible spectrum. As a proof-of-concept application, one of the MCFs was coupled to an implantable neural probe to spatially address light-emitting gratings on the probe

Full-field swept-source optical coherence tomography and neural tissue classification for deep brain imaging

Optical coherence tomography can differentiate brain regions with intrinsic contrast and at a micron scale resolution. Such a device can be particularly useful as a realtime neurosurgical guidance tool. We present, to our knowledge, the first full-field swept-source optical coherence tomography system operating near a wavelength of 1310 nm. The proof-of-concept system was integrated with an endoscopic probe tip, that is compatible with deep brain stimulation keyhole neurosurgery. Neuroimaging experiments were performed on ex vivo brain tissues and in vivo in rat brains. Using classification algorithms involving texture features and optical attenuation, images were successfully classified into three brain tissue types

No differences in value-based decision-making due to use of oral contraceptives

Fluctuating ovarian hormones have been shown to affect decision-making processes in women. While emerging evidence suggests effects of endogenous ovarian hormones such as estradiol and progesterone on value-based decision-making in women, the impact of exogenous synthetic hormones, as in most oral contraceptives, is not clear. In a between-subjects design, we assessed measures of value-based decision-making in three groups of women aged 18 to 29 years, during (1) active oral contraceptive intake (N = 22), (2) the early follicular phase of the natural menstrual cycle (N = 20), and (3) the periovulatory phase of the natural menstrual cycle (N = 20). Estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, and sex-hormone binding globulin levels were assessed in all groups via blood samples. We used a test battery which measured different facets of value-based decision-making: delay discounting, risk-aversion, risk-seeking, and loss aversion. While hormonal levels did show the expected patterns for the three groups, there were no differences in value-based decision-making parameters. Consequently, Bayes factors showed conclusive evidence in support of the null hypothesis. We conclude that women on oral contraceptives show no differences in value-based decision-making compared to the early follicular and periovulatory natural menstrual cycle phases. Copyright © 2022 Lewis, Kimmig, Kroemer, Pooseh, Smolka, Sacher and Derntl

Longitudinal 7T MRI reveals volumetric changes in subregions of human medial temporal lobe to sex hormone fluctuations

The hippocampus and surrounding medial temporal lobe (MTL) are critical for memory processes, with local atrophy linked to memory deficits. Animal work shows that MTL subregions densely express sex hormone receptors and exhibit rapid structural changes synchronized with hormone fluctuations. Such transient effects in humans have thus far not been shown. By combining a dense-sampling protocol, ultra-high field neuroimaging and individually-derived segmentation analysis, we demonstrate how estradiol and progesterone fluctuations affect MTL subregion volumes across the human menstrual cycle. Twenty-seven healthy women (19-34 years) underwent 7T MRI at six timepoints to acquire T1-weighted and T2-weighted images. Linear mixed-effects modeling showed positive associations between estradiol and parahippocampal cortex volume, progesterone and subiculum and perirhinal Area 35 volumes, and an estradiol*progesterone interaction with CA1 volume. We confirmed volumetric changes were not driven by hormone-related water (cerebral spinal fluid) or blood-flow (pulsed arterial spin labeling) changes. These findings suggest that sex hormones alter structural brain plasticity in subregions that are differentially sensitive to hormones. Mapping how endogenous endocrine factors shape adult brain structure has critical implications for women’s health during the reproductive years as well as later in life, such as increased dementia risk following perimenopause, a period of pronounced sex hormone fluctuations

Menstrual cycle phase modulates emotional conflict processing in women with and without premenstrual syndrome (PMS): A pilot study

Background Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is characterized by a cluster of psychological and somatic symptoms during the late luteal phase of the menstrual cycle that disappear after the onset of menses. Behavioral differences in emotional and cognitive processing have been reported in women with PMS, and it is of particular interest whether PMS affects the parallel execution of emotional and cognitive processing. Related to this is the question of how the performance of women with PMS relates to stress levels compared to women without PMS. Cortisol has been shown to affect emotional processing in general and it has also been shown that women with severe PMS have a particular cortisol profile. Methods We measured performance in an emotional conflict task and stress levels in women with PMS (n = 15) and women without PMS (n = 15) throughout their menstrual cycle. Results We found a significant increase (p = 0.001) in the mean reaction time for resolving emotional conflict from the follicular to the luteal cycle phase in all subjects. Only women with PMS demonstrated an increase in physiological and subjective stress measures during the luteal menstrual cycle phase. Conclusions Our findings suggest that the menstrual cycle modulates the integration of emotional and cognitive processing in all women. Preliminary data are supportive of the secondary hypothesis that stress levels are mediated by the menstrual cycle phase only in women with PMS. The presented evidence for menstrual cycle-specific differences in integrating emotional and cognitive information highlights the importance of controlling for menstrual cycle phase in studies that aim to elucidate the interplay of emotion and cognition

A single dose of escitalopram blunts the neural response in the thalamus and caudate during monetary loss

Background: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) show acute effects on the neural processes associated with negative affective bias in healthy people and people with depression. However, whether and how SSRIs also affect reward and punishment processing on a similarly rapid time scale remains unclear. Methods: We investigated the effects of an acute and clinically relevant dose (20 mg) of the SSRI escitalopram on brain response during reward and punishment processing in 19 healthy participants. In a doubleblind, placebo-controlled study using functional MRI, participants performed a well-established monetary reward task at 3 time points: at baseline; after receiving placebo or escitalopram; and after receiving placebo or escitalopram following an 8-week washout period. Results: Acute escitalopram administration reduced blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) response during punishment feedback in the right thalamus (family-wise error corrected [FWE] p = 0.013 at peak level) and the right caudate head (pFWE = 0.011 at peak level) compared to placebo. We did not detect any significant BOLD changes during reward feedback. Limitations: We included only healthy participants, so interpretation of findings are limited to the healthy human brain and require future testing in patient populations. The paradigm we used was based on monetary stimuli, and results may not be generalizable to other forms of reward. Conclusion: Our findings extend theories of rapid SSRI action on the neural processing of rewarding and aversive stimuli and suggest a specific and acute effect of escitalopram in the punishment neurocircuitry