ArticleJournal of affective disorders2025
The effects of estradiol on subcortical brain volumes in perimenopausal-onset depression.
Article in Journal of affective disorders, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Impact of Estradiol Dynamics During the Menopause Transition on Depression Risk: A Narrative Review of Estradiol's Neurobiological Mechanisms.Biological psychiatry · 2026Review
- The Relationship Between Menopausal Status and Depression in U.S. Women: Insights from the NHANES 2017-March 2020 Cross-Sectional Study.Actas espanolas de psiquiatria · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPerimenopause is associated with increases in depressive and vasomotor symptoms (VMS), which can be alleviated with transdermal estradiol (TE2) administration. Subcortical brain regions are commonly implicated in depression, are dense with E2 receptors and are susceptible to volumetric changes resulting from E2 regulation of synaptic density. No studies have examined linkages among TE2 administration, perimenopausal-onset major depression (PO-MDD) and subcortical brain volumes.
methodsThis is an exploratory data analysis of change in subcortical brain volumes measured via 3 T MRI before and after three-weeks of TE2 administration in 14 women with PO-MDD and 17 euthymic controls. Regions of interest were the hippocampus, amygdala, putamen, thalamus, and caudate nucleus. Multilevel models examined relations between baseline volumes and volumetric changes with symptom trajectories in the PO-MDD group.
resultsIn the PO-MDD group, anhedonia (p < 0.004) and VMS (p < 0.001) significantly reduced following TE2 administration. There was a significant Group X Time interaction in the right hippocampus (p < 0.01), driven by volume increases in the control group (p < 0.001). In the PO-MDD group, change in right hippocampal volumes significantly predicted decreases in anhedonia trajectories from baseline to week 2 and week 3 (p's < 0.001) and decreases in VMS across all timepoints (p's < 0.001). DISCUSSION: Women with PO-MDD, who presented with more severe baseline anhedonia and VMS, experienced greater reductions in anhedonia, VMS, and hippocampal volumes, demonstrating a greater response to E2. Hippocampal volume change may be a candidate for predicting treatment response to E2 for anhedonia and vasomotor symptoms in women with PO-MDD. These findings should be validated with a placebo-controlled trial.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.