bioRxiv Science⌕ Search
Home/Archive/bioRxiv

bioRxiv · 10.64898/2026.01.26.701743

Traumatic Brain Injury Associated with Altered Corpus Callosum Microstructure in Females: Exploring the Roles of Menopause Timing and Hormone Therapy in UK Biobank

Espana-Irla, G.·Tinney, E. M.·Perko, M.·Nwakamma, M.·Noble, S.·Morris, T. P.
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

BackgroundTraumatic brain injury (TBI) has lasting effects on white matter, yet sex-specific factors such as menopause timing and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may modulate these outcomes in females. ObjectivesTo investigate how TBI, menopause timing, HRT use, and reproductive history relate to corpus callosum white matter microstructure in female UK Biobank participants. DesignCross-sectional analysis of UK Biobank diffusion MRI data using propensity score matching to compare females with TBI to controls. MethodsWe analyzed diffusion MRI data from females with and without TBI. Corpus callosum fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), and isotropic volume fraction (ISOVF) were assessed. TBI effects were examined across pre- and post-menopausal groups, accounting for HRT use, duration, and reproductive factors. ResultsFemales with TBI (n=363) exhibited widespread corpus callosum alterations compared to propensity-matched controls (n=10,128), with reduced FA across all regions (genu: {beta}=-0.006, FDR p=0.027; body: {beta}=-0.006, FDR p=0.002; splenium: {beta}=-0.004, FDR p=0.009) and elevated MD in anterior regions (genu: FDR p=0.001; body: FDR p=0.002). TBI sustained before menopause was associated with significantly lower splenium FA ({beta}=-0.010, p=0.031) and higher body MD ({beta}=0.000019, p=0.021) compared with TBI sustained after menopause and controls. HRT use did not modify TBI-related alterations in primary analyses. However, among HRT users (n=3,108), a significant TBIxduration interaction emerged for genu MD ({beta}=2.00x10-6, p=0.0295), indicating that the effect of HRT duration on white matter microstructure differed between TBI cases and healthy females. Reproductive factors (parity, reproductive lifespan) independently predicted some white matter measures but did not confound TBI, menopause timing, or HRT associations. ConclusionsTBI-related white matter changes in females are influenced by menopause timing and hormonal exposure, with HRT effects dependent on duration and injury context. These findings highlight the importance of sex- and hormone-specific approaches in TBI research and the need for longitudinal studies to clarify mechanisms and potential interventions.

Source connections

Explore related subjects

neurosciencePreprint

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Espana-Irla, G., Tinney, E. M., Perko, M., Nwakamma, M., Noble, S., Morris, T. P.. 2026-01-27. Traumatic Brain Injury Associated with Altered Corpus Callosum Microstructure in Females: Exploring the Roles of Menopause Timing and Hormone Therapy in UK Biobank. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.01.26.701743

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

bioRxiv2026

Attention Across Scales: From Individual Variation to Social Hierarchies and Brain Networks in Semi-Free-Ranging Macaques

Attention is a fundamental brain function supporting perception, decision-making, and social behavior, and its dysfunction profoundly impairs daily life. It is both dynamic and stable, varying across observations and individuals, changing across the lifespan, and being shaped by social and environmental experience. Yet capturing this complexity remains a central challenge in neuroscience. Here, we integrated longitudinal behavioral assessments of semi-free-ranging macaques living in naturalistic social groups with resting-state fMRI. We quantified performance across days, ages, and social hierarchies and related it to intrinsic brain organization. Distinct attentional phenotypes emerged, including individuals with reduced attentional control. Performance followed an inverted-U lifespan trajectory, improving from childhood to adulthood before declining. Social status modulated attentional performance. Critically, nonlinear lifespan trajectories and associations with individual attentional differences were most clearly expressed in frontoparietal connectivity. Together, these findings reveal how sustained attention is organized across scales, providing a biological framework for its individual diversity, social modulation, and neural basis.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

Decoding natural scenes from patterned optogenetic responses in mouse visual cortex

A central challenge in developing visual cortical prostheses is to determine how visual stimuli should be transformed into effective patterns of cortical stimulation. Although advances in stimulation technologies, including optogenetics, provide increasingly precise control over cortical activity, it remains unclear whether artificially evoked activity can reproduce the information content of naturally evoked visual representations. Here we establish a quantitative framework for evaluating visual encoding strategies by decoding cortical responses evoked by natural vision and patterned optogenetic stimulation. We developed a novel dual-modal paradigm in awake mice to bridge the gap between endogenous photostimulation and artificial network driving. By co-expressing the high-performance calcium indicator GCaMP6s and the red-shifted, ultra-sensitive opsin rsChRmine-oScarlet in the primary visual cortex (V1), we successfully translated dynamic natural movie frames into patterned, spatiotemporal optogenetic stimulation. Quantitative comparisons of macro-scale dynamics demonstrated that this patterned optogenetic injection evokes cortical states highly comparable and representationally aligned with those driven by actual visual photostimulation. To systematically evaluate the fidelity of these responses, we developed STAR, a deep learning model featuring spatial and temporal attention mechanisms, and successfully reconstructed the frames of natural movies from V1 signals under both experimental modalities. Collectively, our results demonstrate that complex sensory information can be both naturally encoded and synthetically injected into V1 circuits with high decoding fidelity. This work provides an empirical and computational proof-of-concept for intelligent, closed-loop biomimetic encoders, establishing a robust framework for next-generation cortical visual neuroprostheses and bidirectional brain-machine interfaces.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

Why Is Spontaneous Blink Timing Informative? An Adaptive Scheduling Perspective

Spontaneous eye blinks have long been linked to cognitive processing, yet how task demands shape blink timing and its relationship to behavioral performance remains unclear. We examined spontaneous blink behavior in 576 adults performing two variants of the Continuous Performance Task (CPT). Blink occurrence and timing were most strongly modulated by the experimental condition in the more demanding CPT-AX task, whereas their association with response time was stronger in the CPT-X task, where more consistent blink timing predicted faster responses. This dissociation suggests that task structure changes not only blink behavior but also the behavioral relevance of blink timing. These findings are consistent with an adaptive scheduling account of spontaneous blinking and provide a conceptual framework for understanding when and why blink timing contains chronometric information about ongoing cognition.

neuroscience↗