Project summary
The structure and function of the brain is influenced by the context of people’s lives, especially gender/sex. These influences include hormones and genes, as well as culture, social environment and personal life experiences. In turn, these factors can influence our brain health and successful aging.
The purpose of this study is to learn about how long-term hormone therapy, and gendered experiences such as social stress, influence cognitive aging and dementia risk in transfeminine-spectrum people. We measure participants’ performance on a series of cognitive tasks and ask them to complete a questionnaire. In a subset of participants, we also measure brain structure and function with MRI.
The goal of this study is to provide scientific and trans communities with much-needed information about the possible influences of long-term gender affirming hormone therapy on brain aging, and to begin to disambiguate effects of hormone therapy from biosocial effects of gender/sex. In this way, we hope to advance the scientific understanding of the roles that sex- and stress- related hormones play in cognitive aging and dementia. We also hope this work will facilitate increasingly flexible and personalised gender affirming hormone therapies that are aligned to the patient’s individual health and transition goals.
Project status
We are currently recruiting study participants.
If you are interested in the project, contact Dr. Gillian Einstein at gillian.einstein@utoronto.ca or securely provide your contact information here and we will contact you!