ESPE Abstracts

Background: Sex hormones organize brain structure and function, particularly early in life. Endocrine neuroimaging offers the opportunity to assess the impact of sex hormones but also genetic contributions on structural neuroanatomy and neurocognitive-affective function in disorders of sexual development (DSD). This may be particularly relevant from a psychopathological perspective of how such neural changes contribute to mood and anxiety disorders frequently observed in DSD.<...

Background: Spatial navigation is an essential human skill that helps individuals track their changes in position and orientation by integrating self-motion cues. Meta-analyses indicate that males, on average, perform better than females on a number of spatial tasks. Sex steroids, mainly androgens, modulate the remodeling of synapses in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, a limbic brain area with critical influence on spatial and contextual memory. Androgen...