Article Figures & Data
Figures
- Figure 1.
Approach-avoidance task (Volman et al., 2011a, 2013). The response action to an emotional face is associated with an approach (pull toward) or avoidance (pull away) movement and can be either congruent or incongruent with the automatic tendency elicited by the face. Affect-congruent conditions (approach–happy, avoid–angry) overlap with the automatic tendency to approach something positive and avoid something negative. However, during affect-incongruent conditions these emotional tendencies need to be controlled to perform the opposite action (avoid-happy, approach-angry).
- Figure 2.
Cerebral distribution of significant testosterone-modulated congruency effects (incongruent > congruent trials) across the sample of 47 participants. a–c, BOLD congruency effects decreased as testosterone levels increased in the thalamus (a; pFWE < 0.05) and in the amygdala (b; SVC pFWE < 0.05). BOLD congruency effects increased as testosterone levels increased in the aPFC (c; SVC pFWE < 0.05). d, Mean-adjusted BOLD congruency effects (incongruent > congruent) in the aPFC (green) and pulvinar (blue) as a function of testosterone level (as an indicator of pubertal status). Dots represent the effect size of the congruency effect of each participant.
- Figure 3.
a, b, Functional coupling between the amygdala and pulvinar (a) changed as a function of performance (b). Individuals with higher testosterone levels had stronger positive coupling between the amygdala and pulvinar, as a function of increasing error rate (incongruent vs congruent trials; SVC pFWE = 0.043). The scatterplot illustrates mean-adjusted congruency-related modulation of amygdala–pulvinar connectivity as a function of error rate, separately for high-testosterone (in green) and low-testosterone participants (in blue).
Tables
Testosterone T1 (pg/ml) Testosterone T2 (pg/ml) PDS score Age (years) Boys 39.4 (31.53) 42.2 (24.77) 2.4 (0.63) 14.55 (0.10) Girls 10.7 (6.28) 11.66 (9.25) 2.6 (1.02) 14.61 (0.18) Values represent the mean (SD). Testosterone T1 and T2 represent the first and second salivary measurement (respectively). Testosterone values between the first and second measurement did not differ significantly either for boys (t(19) = −0.99, p = 0.333) or girls (t(25) = −0.66, p = 0.514). Testosterone T1 levels were used for subsequent analyses.
- Table 2.
Reaction times and error rates in the AA task for approach and avoidance movements in response to happy and angry faces
Approach Avoid RT (ms) Happy 622 (16) 679 (16) Angry 673 (19) 679 (17) ER (%) Happy 6.4 (0.5) 8.4 (0.9) Angry 8.7 (1.2) 6.7 (0.8) Values indicate mean (SE) across participants.
- Table 3.
Significant clusters showing a larger effect during affect-incongruent than affect-congruent trials in the approach avoidance task modulated by testosterone
Anatomical region Side BA k MNI coordinates p t x y z Positive testosterone modulation of congruency effect aPFC/mid frontal orbital R 10/46 33 40 58 −6 0.04a 3.55 Negative testosterone modulation of congruency effect Dorsomedial thalamus/pulvinar L 626 −8 −20 16 <0.001 5.39 Anterior thalamus/caudate nucleus R Hippocampus L 37 272 −38 −34 −2 0.013 6.56 Precentral sulcus/SFS R 6 196 20 −8 50 0.046 4.91 Amygdala R 34 14 26 −2 −14 0.026a 3.87 BA, Brodmann Area; k, number of voxels in a cluster; p, FWE-corrected cluster-level value; t, t-statistic at the peak voxel; R, right; L, left; SFS, superior frontal sulcus.
↵aSVC over anatomically defined ROI.
