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Endogenous testosterone is associated with lower amygdala reactivity to angry faces and reduced aggressive behavior in healthy young women

Testosterone and cortisol have been proposed to influence aggressive behavior by altering the neural processing of facial threat signals. However, this has not been investigated in direct social interactions. Here, we explored the joint impact of testosterone, cortisol, and brain reactivity to anger...

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Autores principales: Buades-Rotger, Macià, Engelke, Christin, Beyer, Frederike, Keevil, Brian G., Brabant, Georg, Krämer, Ulrike M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5141420/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27924836
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep38538
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author Buades-Rotger, Macià
Engelke, Christin
Beyer, Frederike
Keevil, Brian G.
Brabant, Georg
Krämer, Ulrike M.
author_facet Buades-Rotger, Macià
Engelke, Christin
Beyer, Frederike
Keevil, Brian G.
Brabant, Georg
Krämer, Ulrike M.
author_sort Buades-Rotger, Macià
collection PubMed
description Testosterone and cortisol have been proposed to influence aggressive behavior by altering the neural processing of facial threat signals. However, this has not been investigated in direct social interactions. Here, we explored the joint impact of testosterone, cortisol, and brain reactivity to anger expressions on women’s reactive aggression in the Social Threat Aggression Paradigm (STAP). The STAP is a competitive reaction time task in which the purported opponent displays either an angry or a neutral facial expression at the beginning of each trial and delivers increasingly loud sound blasts to the participants, successfully provoking them. Strikingly, salivary testosterone at scan-time was negatively related to both aggression and basolateral amygdala (BLA) reactivity to angry faces, whereas cortisol had no effect. When the opponent looked angry, BLA-orbitofrontal coupling was reduced, and BLA reactivity was positively related to aggression. The latter relationship was fully mediated by bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG) activation. Our results thus support previous neurobiological models of aggression, and extend them by demonstrating that fast amygdala responses to threat modulate STG activity in order to favor aggressive retaliation. Furthermore, our study agrees with recent evidence underscoring a fear-reducing and strategically prosocial effect of testosterone on human social behavior.
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spelling pubmed-51414202016-12-16 Endogenous testosterone is associated with lower amygdala reactivity to angry faces and reduced aggressive behavior in healthy young women Buades-Rotger, Macià Engelke, Christin Beyer, Frederike Keevil, Brian G. Brabant, Georg Krämer, Ulrike M. Sci Rep Article Testosterone and cortisol have been proposed to influence aggressive behavior by altering the neural processing of facial threat signals. However, this has not been investigated in direct social interactions. Here, we explored the joint impact of testosterone, cortisol, and brain reactivity to anger expressions on women’s reactive aggression in the Social Threat Aggression Paradigm (STAP). The STAP is a competitive reaction time task in which the purported opponent displays either an angry or a neutral facial expression at the beginning of each trial and delivers increasingly loud sound blasts to the participants, successfully provoking them. Strikingly, salivary testosterone at scan-time was negatively related to both aggression and basolateral amygdala (BLA) reactivity to angry faces, whereas cortisol had no effect. When the opponent looked angry, BLA-orbitofrontal coupling was reduced, and BLA reactivity was positively related to aggression. The latter relationship was fully mediated by bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG) activation. Our results thus support previous neurobiological models of aggression, and extend them by demonstrating that fast amygdala responses to threat modulate STG activity in order to favor aggressive retaliation. Furthermore, our study agrees with recent evidence underscoring a fear-reducing and strategically prosocial effect of testosterone on human social behavior. Nature Publishing Group 2016-12-07 /pmc/articles/PMC5141420/ /pubmed/27924836 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep38538 Text en Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Buades-Rotger, Macià
Engelke, Christin
Beyer, Frederike
Keevil, Brian G.
Brabant, Georg
Krämer, Ulrike M.
Endogenous testosterone is associated with lower amygdala reactivity to angry faces and reduced aggressive behavior in healthy young women
title Endogenous testosterone is associated with lower amygdala reactivity to angry faces and reduced aggressive behavior in healthy young women
title_full Endogenous testosterone is associated with lower amygdala reactivity to angry faces and reduced aggressive behavior in healthy young women
title_fullStr Endogenous testosterone is associated with lower amygdala reactivity to angry faces and reduced aggressive behavior in healthy young women
title_full_unstemmed Endogenous testosterone is associated with lower amygdala reactivity to angry faces and reduced aggressive behavior in healthy young women
title_short Endogenous testosterone is associated with lower amygdala reactivity to angry faces and reduced aggressive behavior in healthy young women
title_sort endogenous testosterone is associated with lower amygdala reactivity to angry faces and reduced aggressive behavior in healthy young women
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5141420/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27924836
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep38538
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