ArticleActa psychiatrica Scandinavica2020
Oral contraceptives and the serotonin 4 receptor: a molecular brain imaging study in healthy women.
Article in Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- The historical progression of positron emission tomography research in neuroendocrinology.Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2023Pooled it
- Hormonal contraceptives and the brain: A systematic review on 60 years of neuroimaging, EEG, and biochemical studies in humans and animals.Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2023Pooled it
- Effects on hippocampal activity following novel 5-HT4 receptor agonism in unmedicated patients with depression: the RESTAND study.Translational psychiatry · 2026Trial
- Early effects of a novel 5-HTThe British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science · 2026Article
- Assessing the association between combined oral contraceptive use, selected biomarkers, and depressive episodes among premenopausal women: a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis.Systematic reviews · 2026Article
- Poor mood after oral contraceptive use is associated with increased vulnerability to peripartum depression, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and higher genetic risk for depression.Archives of women's mental health · 2026Article
- Hormonal contraceptives and EEG biomarkers for antidepressant treatment response in women.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- Novel, small molecules targeting the 5-HTbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Effect of combined oral contraceptive use on verbal memory function in healthy women.Archives of women's mental health · 2025Article
- Effects on hippocampal activity following 5-HT4 receptor agonism in unmedicated patients with depression: the RESTAND study.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Detection of Problems Related to Hormonal Contraceptives in Community Pharmacy: Application of a Structured Questionnaire in Women of Childbearing Age.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Chronic, combinatorial targeting of NMDARs and 5-HTNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Hormonal contraceptive use is associated with reduced central serotonergic activity indexed by the loudness dependence of auditory evoked potentials.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Sex hormones and serotonin 4 receptor brain binding in men with and without major depressive disorder.Neuroscience applied · 2025Article
- Loudness dependence of the auditory evoked potential: temporal stability, associations to sociodemographic variables, and functional significance-implications for clinical research.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- No association between peripheral serotonin-gene-related DNA methylation and brain serotonin neurotransmission in the healthy and depressed state.Clinical epigenetics · 2024Article
- Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and Irritable Bowel Syndrome: Is There a Common Pathway?Endocrinology, diabetes & metabolism · 2024Review
- Low-grade inflammation and serotonin 4 receptor binding in the healthy and the depressed brain.Neuroscience applied · 2024Article
- Current oral contraceptive use affects explicit and implicit measures of depression in women.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Stress Hormone Dynamics Are Coupled to Brain Serotonin 4 Receptor Availability in Unmedicated Patients With Major Depressive Disorder: A NeuroPharm Study.The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveSex steroid hormones potently shape brain functions, including those critical to maintain mental health such as serotonin signaling. Use of oral contraceptives (OCs) profoundly changes endogenous sex steroid hormone levels and dynamics. Recent register-based studies show that starting an OC is associated with increased risk of developing depression. Here, we investigate whether use of OCs in healthy women is associated with a marker of the serotonin system in terms of serotonin 4 receptor (5-HT4R) brain imaging.
methods[
resultsWe demonstrate that OC users have 9-12% lower global brain 5-HT4R binding potential compared to non-users. Univariate region-based analyses (pallidostriatum, caudate, hippocampus, amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, and neocortex) supported the global effect of OC use with the largest difference present in the hippocampus (-12.8% (95% CI [-21.0; -3.9], P
conclusionWe show that women who use OCs have markedly lower brain 5-HT4R binding relative to non-users, which constitutes a plausible molecular link between OC use and increased risk of depressive episodes. We propose that this reflects a reduced 5-HT4R gene expression, possibly related to a blunted ovarian hormone state among OC users.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.