•Hormonal contraceptive (HC) effects are complex and unique to individuals.•Effects vary by formulation (progestins) and administration (oral, intrauterine)•HCs differentially affect spatial skills, ...verbal memory, depression, and anxiety.•In some cases, HC effects may be organizational for the brain and behavior.•Future studies must have increased generalizability and methodological rigor.
In the last decade, there has been a remarkable surge in research on the neural and behavioral correlates of hormonal contraceptive use, particularly oral contraceptive use. Questions have evolved swiftly and notably, with studies no longer revealing if hormonal contraceptives matter for the brain and behavior, but rather how, when, and for whom they matter most. Paralleling this shift, the goal of this review is to move beyond an average synthesis of hormonal contraceptive influences on human cognition and psychopathology (and their neural substrates) in order to consider the nature and specificity of effects. Accompanied by an evaluation of study methods and informed by findings from animal models, this consideration uncovers promising areas of research in the next ten years, including potential activational and organizational effects of hormonal contraceptive use, individual differences in effects that matter for the wellbeing of unique individuals, and correlates of intrauterine device use.
Cognitive neuroscience research has traditionally overlooked half of the population. Arguing that variability in ovarian hormones confounds empirical findings, girls and women have been excluded from ...research for decades. But times are changing. This review summarizes historical trends that have led to a knowledge gap in the role of ovarian hormones in neuroscience, synthesizes recent findings on ovarian hormone contributions to cognitive brain structures and function, and highlights areas ripe for future work. This is accomplished by reviewing research that has leveraged natural experiments in humans across the life span that focus on puberty, the menstrual cycle, hormonal contraceptive use, menopause, and menopausal hormone therapy. Although findings must be considered in light of study designs (e.g., sample characteristics and group comparisons versus randomized crossover trials), across natural experiments there is consistent evidence for associations of estradiol with cortical thickness, especially in frontal regions, and hippocampal volumes, as well as with frontal regions during cognitive processing. There are also emerging investigations of resting state connectivity and progesterone along with exciting opportunities for future work, particularly concerning biopsychosocial moderators of and individual differences in effects in novel natural experiments. Thus, delineating complex ovarian hormone contributions to cognitive brain structures and function will advance neuroscience.
This review summarizes historical trends that have led to a knowledge gap in the role of ovarian hormones in neuroscience, synthesizes recent findings on ovarian hormone contributions to cognitive brain structures and function, and highlights areas ripe for future work.
The measurement of puberty is an intricate and precise task, requiring a match between participants’ developmental age and appropriate techniques to identify and capture variations in maturation. ...Much of the foundational work on puberty and its psychosocial correlates was conducted several decades ago. In this article, we review the biological foundation of puberty; the operationalization of puberty in statistical analyses; and strategies for considering diversity and social context in research to help researchers align measurement with meaningful conceptual questions. These three areas are particularly important, given new statistical techniques, greater awareness of individual variations in development, and key differences between past cohorts and youth coming of age today.
Sex differences in depression emerge in adolescence, in concert with puberty. Off-time maturers, especially early-maturing girls, report more depressive symptoms than their same-sex peers. Recent ...evidence shows that these pubertal timing effects persist into adulthood, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear.
Participants were 318 young adults (201 women, 117 men) who rated their depressive symptoms in the past 2 weeks and provided valid retrospective reports of their pubertal timing. Controlling for age, regression analyses were used to examine effects of sex, linear and quadratic pubertal timing, and their interaction on depressive symptoms. (Non)linear indirect effects analyses were used to identify psychological mechanisms (self-perceived masculinity, positive affect, and negative affect) underlying persisting effects, separately for men and women.
For young men, pubertal timing effects on depression were linear, with later maturers reporting more symptoms. Effects were partially explained by late maturers' low self-perceptions of masculinity and low positive affect. For young women, pubertal timing effects on depression were quadratic, with early and late maturers reporting more symptoms than on-time maturers. Effects were partially explained by off-time maturers' high negative affect.
Pubertal timing is related to adult depressive symptoms, but the nature of the link and the mechanisms underlying it differ for men and women. This increases understanding of the long-term consequences of gendered adolescent experiences and may have downstream implications for individualized prevention and intervention through gender-related individual differences that contribute to heterogeneity in depression etiology.
Highlights ► A key question concerns organizational hormone effects on human behavior. ► We review evidence for effects of prenatal and pubertal hormones. ► Prenatal androgens masculinize interests, ...sexual orientation, and some abilities. ► Pubertal hormones may influence gender identity and sex-linked behavior problems. ► Questions remain about puberty as an organizational period and mechanisms of effects.
Network Mapping with GIMME Beltz, Adriene M.; Gates, Kathleen M.
Multivariate behavioral research,
11/2017, Letnik:
52, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Network science is booming! While the insights and images afforded by network mapping techniques are compelling, implementing the techniques is often daunting to researchers. Thus, the aim of this ...tutorial is to facilitate implementation in the context of GIMME, or group iterative multiple model estimation. GIMME is an automated network analysis approach for intensive longitudinal data. It creates person-specific networks that explain how variables are related in a system. The relations can signify current or future prediction that is common across people or applicable only to an individual. The tutorial begins with conceptual and mathematical descriptions of GIMME. It proceeds with a practical discussion of analysis steps, including data acquisition, preprocessing, program operation, a posteriori testing of model assumptions, and interpretation of results; throughout, a small empirical data set is analyzed to showcase the GIMME analysis pipeline. The tutorial closes with a brief overview of extensions to GIMME that may interest researchers whose questions and data sets have certain features. By the end of the tutorial, researchers will be equipped to begin analyzing the temporal dynamics of their heterogeneous time series data with GIMME.
Women were historically excluded from research participation partly due to the assumption that ovarian hormone fluctuations lead to variation, especially in emotion, that could not be experimentally ...controlled. Although challenged in principle and practice, relevant empirical data are limited by single measurement occasions. The current paper fills this knowledge gap using data from a 75-day intensive longitudinal study. Three indices of daily affective variability-volatility, emotional inertia, and cyclicity-were evaluated using Bayesian inferential methods in 142 men, naturally cycling women, and women using three different oral contraceptive formulations (that "stabilize" hormone fluctuations). Results provided more evidence for similarities between men and women-and between naturally cycling women and oral contraceptive users-than for differences. Even if differences exist, effects are likely small. Thus, there is little indication that ovarian hormones influence affective variability in women to a greater extent than the biopsychosocial factors that influence daily emotion in men.
Affective phenomena have noteworthy complexity and heterogeneity-shared experiences and emotions evoke distinct responses and risk for affective problems across individuals (e.g., higher rates in ...women than men). Yet by averaging across individuals, affective science research traditionally treats affect as homogenous. Directly modeling person-specific heterogeneity in affective complexity (AC)-like the granularity and covariation of affective experiences-is paramount for identifying shared (i.e., common; nomothetic) and/or unshared (i.e., personal; idiographic) features of AC. The present study applied a person-specific technique to capture heterogeneity in daily affect and risk for affective problems in men and women and leveraged personalized results to improve general understanding of AC. Young adults (n = 56; 25 female) reported affect on each of 75 days of an intensive longitudinal study. AC was modeled using p-technique (i.e., person-specific factor analysis), and its utility over traditional, between-person models of affect (i.e., bivariate positive and negative affect) was compared for prediction of risk for affective problems in women compared to men. A community detection network algorithm was then applied to estimate person-specific AC to develop an idiographically informed nomothetic model of AC. Person-specific analyses detected wide variation in AC across individuals (i.e., range of 2-8 factors). Relative to the traditional bivariate model, idiographic models had incremental utility for differentiating risk for affective problems by gender. Nomothetic review of idiographic results (via community detection) revealed distinct dynamics in positive and negative affect networks. Person-specific science holds particular promise for mapping heterogeneity in AC and uncovering risk pathways for affective problems.
The mind and body function in tandem across days and development, and in unique ways for individuals, but most work on the relation between personality and physical health is cross-sectional, ...assuming homogeneity across time and people. For instance, although neuroticism is associated with poor health, the direction of the relation and whether it characterizes all people all of the time is unclear. The goal of this study is to fill knowledge gaps concerning the person-specific, day-to-day neuroticism-health link.
A 75-occassion intensive longitudinal study was conducted in which 119 adults reported daily on 12 indicators of neuroticism and 3 symptoms of physical health. Person-specific network analyses, conducted using the multiple solutions version of group iterative multiple model estimation (GIMME-MS), were used to determine the presence, valence, daily lag, and direction of relations among the daily variables. Network features were compared within and between individuals.
Person-specific networks were heterogeneous. Participants were significantly more likely to have networks in which physical symptoms predicted indicators of neuroticism compared to the reverse; this was particularly true for next-day relations, and for women. Exploratory analyses suggested that participants with a disproportionate amount of these health-to-neuroticism relations scored high on conscientiousness.
Person-specific network mapping of ecologically-valid intensive longitudinal data revealed heterogeneity in day-to-day relations between indicators of neuroticism and physical health, with long-term implications for personalized healthcare. There was some consistency, however, in that “body” symptoms were more likely to predict “mind” features across people.
•Over 100 person-specific networks were created from 75-day diary data.•There was substantial heterogeneity in relations between neuroticism and health.•Relations were in both directions, but health-to-neuroticism links were more common.•Women had more health-to-neuroticism relations than men, predicting across days.
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