Adolescence is characterized by rapid brain development in white matter (WM) that is attributed in part to surges in gonadal hormones. To date, however, there have been few longitudinal investigations relating changes in gonadal hormones and WM development in adolescents. We acquired diffusion-weighted MRI to estimate mean fractional anisotropy (FA) from 10 WM tracts and salivary testosterone from 51 females and 29 males (ages 9–14 years) who were matched on pubertal stage and followed, on average, for 2 years. We tested whether interactions between sex and changes in testosterone levels significantly explained changes in FA. We found positive associations between changes in testosterone and changes in FA within the corpus callosum, cingulum cingulate, and corticospinal tract in females (all ps<0.05, corrected) and non-significant associations in males. We also collected salivary estradiol from females and found that increases in estradiol were associated with increases in FA in the left uncinate fasciculus (p = 0.04, uncorrected); however, this effect was no longer significant after accounting for changes in testosterone. Our findings indicate there are sex differences in how changes in testosterone relate to changes in WM microstructure of tracts that support impulse control and emotion regulation across the pubertal transition.

青春期的特点是大脑白质（WM）快速发育，这在一定程度上归因于性腺激素的激增。然而，迄今为止，关于青少年性腺激素变化和 WM 发育的纵向研究很少。我们获得了弥散加权 MRI，以估计 10 个 WM 束的平均分数各向异性 (FA) 和 51 名女性和 29 名男性（年龄 9-14 岁）的唾液睾酮，这些人在青春期阶段匹配，并平均随访 2 年。我们测试了性别和睾酮水平变化之间的相互作用是否能显着解释 FA 的变化。我们发现女性中睾酮的变化与胼胝体、扣带回和皮质脊髓束内 FA 的变化之间存在正相关（所有ps <0.05，已校正），而男性中则不存在显着相关。我们还收集了女性的唾液雌二醇，发现雌二醇的增加与左钩束 FA 的增加相关（p  = 0.04，未校正）；然而，在考虑了睾酮的变化后，这种影响不再显着。我们的研究结果表明，睾酮变化与支持青春期过渡期间冲动控制和情绪调节的神经束微结构变化之间的关系存在性别差异。