Altered Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Associated with Pubertal Hormones in Girls with Precocious Puberty

作者：Tao Chen, Yi Lü, Yu Wang, Anna Guo, Xiaoling Xie, Yuchuan Fu, Bangli Shen, Wenxiao Lin, Di Yang, Lu Zhou, Xiaozheng Liu, Peining Liu, Zhihan Yan · 发表于：Neural Plasticity · 年份：2019 · DOI：10.1155/2019/1465632 · 被引用次数：33 · 研究领域：Hypothalamic control of reproductive hormones、Stress Responses and Cortisol、Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior

Pubertal hormones play an important role in brain and psychosocial development. However, the role of abnormal HPG axis states in altering brain function and structure remains unclear. The present study is aimed at determining whether there were significant differences in gray matter volume (GMV) and resting state (RS) functional connectivity (FC) patterns in girls with idiopathic central precocious puberty (CPP) and peripheral precocious puberty (PPP). We further explored the correlation between these differences and serum pubertal hormone levels. To assess this, we recruited 29 idiopathic CPP girls and 38 age-matched PPP girls. A gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) stimulation test was performed, and pubertal hormone levels (including luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), estradiol (E2), prolactin, and cortisol) were assessed. All subjects underwent multimodal magnetic resonance imaging of brain structure and function. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis was paired with seed-to-voxel whole-brain RS-FC analysis to calculate the GMV and RS-FC in idiopathic CPP and PPP girls. Correlation analyses were used to assess the effects of pubertal hormones on brain regions with structural and functional differences between the groups. We found that girls with CPP exhibited decreased GMV in the left insula and left fusiform gyrus, while connectivity between the left and right insula and the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG), as well as the left fusiform gyrus...