Testosterone levels in healthy men are related to amygdala reactivity and memory performance

Psychoneuroendocrinology
Sandra AckermannDominique J-F de Quervain

Abstract

Testosterone is a steroid hormone thought to influence both emotional and cognitive functions. It is unknown, however, if testosterone also affects the interaction between these two domains, such as the emotional arousal-induced enhancement of memory. Healthy subjects (N=234) encoded pictures taken from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and underwent a free recall test 10 min after memory encoding. We show that higher endogenous testosterone levels at encoding were associated with higher arousal ratings of neutral pictures in men. fMRI analysis revealed that higher testosterone levels were related to increased brain activation in the amygdala during encoding of neutral pictures. Moreover, endogenous testosterone levels were positively correlated with the number of freely recalled neutral pictures. No such relations were found in women. These findings point to a male-specific role for testosterone in enhancing memory by increasing the biological salience of incoming information.

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Citations

Sep 10, 2013·Endocrinology and Metabolism Clinics of North America·Nadia Rachdaoui, Dipak K Sarkar
Jul 13, 2013·Psychoneuroendocrinology·Vanessa A van AstHeather C Abercrombie
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Nov 29, 2014·American Journal of Human Biology : the Official Journal of the Human Biology Council·Benjamin C TrumbleMichael Gurven
Jul 9, 2014·Psychoneuroendocrinology·Samuele Zilioli, Neil V Watson
Sep 3, 2013·Journal of Psychiatric Research·Edward F Pace-SchottMohammed R Milad
Mar 6, 2015·Frontiers in Neuroscience·Peter CelecJúlius Hodosy
May 10, 2016·Journal of Experimental Neuroscience·Olakunle J OnaolapoTaofeeq Omoleke
Jan 6, 2021·Psychophysiology·Justin RiddleFlavio Frohlich

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