Estrogen treatment effects on cognition, memory and mood in male-to-female transsexuals
Section snippets
Participants
Genetic males (n = 103) desiring sex re-assignment as females and diagnosed as having Gender Identity Disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) were recruited through the Gender Identity Clinic, Charing Cross Hospital, London, UK, and were paid £10 for participation. For the repeated measures analyses, participants formed 2 conditions, depending on their stage in the treatment process. (1) Off then on (AB) condition: patients were tested first shortly before estrogen treatment began (n =
Results
Prior to analyses, data were examined for skew. Data for variables showing significant skew were transformed to produce normal distributions, and analyses were carried out on transformed values, as well as on untransformed values. In all cases, both analyses produced the same results in terms of significance and insignificance. Results reported are for untransformed values.
There were three primary analyses. Two were repeated measures MANOVAs. One (off then on (AB)) compared participants before
Discussion
We found no support for the hypothesis that treatment of M–F transsexuals with estrogen influences memory or cognitive abilities that show sex differences. For participants tested before and then after estrogen treatment, performance changed on only one task, DS backwards, a control task for which no estrogen treatment effects had been predicted. In addition, the improvement on DS backwards was no longer significant when changes in the mood scale Composed were controlled statistically. For
Acknowledgments
We thank all the patients who participated in this study. We also thank Dr. David Dalrymple, Dr. James Barrett (for referring patients to the study), Jane Eyre (Clinic Manager) and other staff from the Gender Identity Clinic, and Mr. Graham Carter, Charing Cross Hospital, London (for advice on Endocrinology).
This work formed part of the Ph.D. thesis submitted by Clare Miles to the Department of Psychology, City University, London, UK, and financial support for the project was provided by the
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2019, Journal of Sexual MedicineCitation Excerpt :Literature on the cognitive effects of HT is limited and often suffers from methodologic limitations, such as small sample sizes or a lack of pretreatment data.31 Some studies in trans women using estrogens show an improvement in (aspects of) short-term memory, whereas others did not find consistent effects.16,32,33 In our study, no change was observed in loss of concentration or memory loss scores for both trans women and trans men.
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Present address: Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Unit, Department of Mental Health Sciences, Royal Free and University College Medical School, London, UK.