Gray matter differences associated with menopausal hormone therapy in menopausal women: a DARTEL-based VBM study

Abstract

Menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) in women can reduce troublesome menopause symptoms and prevent cognitive decline. This cross-sectional study investigated the MHT-related effect on brain morphology and its association with sex hormones in menopausal women by using an optimized diffeomorphic anatomical registration through exponentiated Lie algebra (DARTEL)-based voxel-based morphometry (VBM) method. Twenty-one menopausal women without MHT (noMHT) and 20 menopausal women with MHT were included in this study. Magnetic resonance imaging data were processed using SPM 12 with DARTEL-based VBM whole brain analysis approach. A 2-sample t-test and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) adjusting for age and total intracranial volume were used to compare GM volume between noMHT and MHT women. The association between MHT (treatment period, hormones levels) and brain volume variations were analyzed by Spearman correlation. MHT women showed significantly larger volumes of the superior/middle/inferior frontal gyri, hypothalamus, inferior temporal gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, hippocampus, cerebellar cortex, postcentral gyrus, precuneus, angular gyrus, supplementary motor area, superior occipital gyrus, and precentral gyrus compared to the noMHT women. The volumes of the angular gyrus and hypothalamus in MHT women positively correlated with treatment period. On the other hand, the hypothalamic volume negatively correlated with FSH and LH levels, and the volumes of the inferior frontal gyrus, and angular gyrus negatively correlated with progesterone levels, respectively. MHT-treated women showed larger GM volume than noMHT women. The anatomical structures that showed greater volume in association with MHT included the deep brain areas, frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital gyri.

Preserved Gray Matter Volume in the Left Superior Temporal Gyrus Underpins Speech-in-Noise Processing in Middle-Aged Adults

“… 36 Instead, the superior temporal gyrus has been proposed as one of the regions demonstrating the effects of sex hormone and age on brain volume in postmenopausal women. 37 , 38 …”

Altered brain morphology and functional connectivity in postmenopausal women: automatic segmentation of whole-brain and thalamic subnuclei and resting-state fMRI

“…Thirty brain regions of interest (ROIs) were selected from both hemispheres based on previous studies [ 1 , 6 , 19 , 20 , 32 ] focused on postmenopausal women, including the superior/middle/inferior frontal cortex, superior/middle/inferior temporal cortex, superior/inferior parietal lobule, lateral/medial orbitofrontal cortex, insula, hippocampus, thalamus, putamen, and amygdala. Twenty-three thalamic subnuclei (46 ROIs) were extracted for the left and right hemispheres, including the antero-ventral (AV), latero-dorsal (LD), lateral posterior (LP), ventral anterior (VA), ventral anterior magnocellular (VAmc), ventral lateral anterior (VLa), ventral lateral posterior (VLp), ventral posterolateral (VPL), central medial (CeM), central lateral (CL), paracentral (Pc), centromedian (CM), parafascicular (Pf), reuniens/medial ventral (MV-re), mediodorsal medial magnocellular (MDm), mediodorsal lateral parvocellular (MDl), lateral geniculate (LGN), medial geniculate (MGN), limitans/suprageniculate (L-SG), pulvinar anterior (PuA), pulvinar medial (PuM), pulvinar lateral (PuL), and pulvinar inferior (PuI) ( Figure 1 ) [ 29 ].…”

“…A similar study [ 20 ] demonstrated accelerated reduction of the hippocampal volume in postmenopausal women. Several morphometric studies [ 6 , 16 , 18 , 19 ] focusing on the effects of estrogen therapy (ET) in postmenopausal women demonstrated enhanced cognitive function that are possibly associated with improvement of the corresponding brain structure and/or connectivity.…”

Pain mechanisms in the transgender individual: a review

“…It is noteworthy that hormone-dependent decline in brain volume has been reported to occur in postmenopausal females, or in females receiving long term anti-estrogens ( 373 , 374 ). Conversely, post-menopausal females undergoing hormone replacement therapies display significantly larger volumes as compared to menopausal women without therapy, of several regions including superior/middle/Inferior frontal gyri, hypothalamus, inferior temporal gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, hippocampus, cerebellar cortex, postcentral gyrus, precuneus, angular gyrus, supplementary motor area, superior occipital gyrus, and precentral gyrus ( 374 ).…”