{
  "abstract": "Adolescence is marked by coordinated endocrine and brain maturation, yet how blood circulating steroid hormones relate to neurochemical change in the brain remains largely unknown. We combined longitudinal data from a novel fast whole-brain, high-resolution three-dimensional proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging technique with repeated measurements of sexual hormones and adrenal steroids in the serum of 42 healthy adolescents (13-15 years; 24 females) totalizing 100 scan-visits. Longitudinal voxel-wise models separated within-individual changes from stable between-individual differences and controlled the false discovery rate across whole-brain tests. In the whole sample, increasing age was associated with higher N-acetylaspartate plus N-acetylaspartylglutamate within individuals, whereas age was positively associated with higher glutamate plus glutamine between individuals. We then observed a hormone-metabolite coupling that differed by sex and steroids. In males, within-individual increases in testosterone tracked frontal increases in glutamate plus glutamine and disseminated increases in total N-acetylaspartate. In females, higher mean estradiol between individuals was associated with higher frontal choline-containing compounds. Within-individual changes in cortisone were associated with myo-inositol and choline-containing compounds in a widespread sex-interaction effect, with positive coupling in males and negative in females. The cortisone/cortisol ratio showed a similar sex-interaction for choline-containing compounds. These findings reveal spatially distributed, sex-dependent links between steroid maturation and adolescent brain neurochemical composition and underscore the importance of differentiating within- and between-individual associations. These observational data extend predominantly structural descriptions of pubertal brain development by identifying distinct coupling of gonadal hormones with neuronal-metabolic markers and glucocorticoid interconversion with glia-weighted metabolites.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 11,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "E. Celereau"
    },
    {
      "name": "F. Lucchetti"
    },
    {
      "name": "Z. Schilliger"
    },
    {
      "name": "Y. Aleman-Gomez"
    },
    {
      "name": "P. Hagmann"
    },
    {
      "name": "P. Conus"
    },
    {
      "name": "A. Merglen"
    },
    {
      "name": "C. Piguet"
    },
    {
      "name": "A. Klauser"
    },
    {
      "name": "D. Dwir"
    },
    {
      "name": "P. Klauser"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/12qthvd48q04w.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.09.07.749851",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.07.749851v1.full",
  "id": "12qthvd48q04w",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.07.749851v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "neuroscience"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2741|Advanced MRI Techniques and Applications"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7212322333",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.07.749851v1.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-07",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/12qthvd48q04w.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:20:49Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.09.07.749851",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.07.749851v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:neuroscience",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Mapping sex-specific hormone-metabolite coupling in the adolescent brain: a longitudinal whole-brain spectroscopic imaging study",
  "title_text": "Mapping sex-specific hormone-metabolite coupling in the adolescent brain: a longitudinal whole-brain spectroscopic imaging study",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:20:49Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/12qthvd48q04w",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}