Organizational hormone effects, body morphology, and the motivational brain
Internally funded project
Start date : 02.02.2018
Project details
Scientific Abstract
This project aims at pinpointing the effects of organizational hormone effects on the motivational brain during development via markers in body morphology. Covering markers of prenatal (e.g., 2D:4D digit ratio) and pubertal (e.g., facial width-to-height ratio) hormones that are specifically affected by organizing effects during specific developmental stages, the project infers the degree to which sex steroids like testosterone and estradiol also affect brain development during these stages. To this end, anthropometry, 2D-measurement of photos and scans, and in the future also fMRI-methods are or will be used. Regarding the motivational brain, specific emphasis is placed on implicit motives due to their ties to endocrine parameters later in life. The project has the following objectives: (1) Detecting associations between markers of organizational hormone effects and adult motivational parameters; (2) linking markers to behavioral, physiological, and endocrinological outcomes in adulthood (planned); (3) further establishing the validity of markers using available external databases which simultaneously include material amenable to morphometric analyses and behavioral outcomes; (4) improving measurement processes for markers via measurement guides and software; (5) using fMRI to detect structural features of the brain connected to markers and motivational parameters (planned).
Additional project members (undergraduate or B.Sc. researchers/non-FAU members):
Kira Bleck
Alexandra Rudnaya
Helena Schmiedl
Stefan Schmiedl
Annika Schwarm
Julia Waßer
