Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen, Germany.
Brain Cogn. 2012 Nov;80(2):214-22. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2012.07.001. Epub 2012 Aug 22.
The present study tested whether the hypothesis that high levels of progesterone (P) have a decoupling effect on the function of the brain hemispheres (Hausmann & Gunturkun, 2000) also extends to attentional functions, referential connections between verbal and nonverbal representations and the degree to which implicit motivational needs match a person's explicit goal commitments. Participants (28 women on oral contraceptives, 14 naturally cycling women, 50 men) completed the Lateralized Attention Network Task (Greene et al., 2008), a measure of the alerting, orienting, and conflict-resolution functions of attention for each hemisphere; a measure of referential competence (i.e., the ability to quickly name nonverbal information); a measure of the implicit motives power, achievement, and affiliation; and a content-matched personal goal inventory. In addition, they provided a saliva sample that was assayed for P and cortisol (C). Higher levels of P were associated with lower interhemispheric correlations for alerting and orienting, but with a higher correlation of conflict-resolution performance. Higher P was also associated with longer interhemispheric transfer time, lower congruence between implicit motives and explicit goal commitments and, after controlling for C, with lower referential competence. These results suggest that (a) P is associated with the degree to which attentional functions are correlated between hemispheres, although in a different direction for more posterior (alerting and orienting: decoupling) than for more anterior functions (conflict resolution: coupling), (b) that high P is associated with other indicators of reduced functional coherence between cognitive systems (longer interhemispheric transfer time, lower referential competence), and (c) that high P is also associated with low coherence between implicit and explicit motivational systems.
本研究旨在检验孕激素（P）水平高是否会对大脑半球功能产生解耦效应的假设（Hausmann & Gunturkun，2000），这种假设是否也适用于注意力功能、言语和非言语表征之间的参照联系，以及内隐动机需求与个体明确目标承诺的匹配程度。参与者（28 名口服避孕药女性、14 名自然周期女性、50 名男性）完成了侧化注意网络任务（Greene 等人，2008），该任务用于测量每个半球的警觉、定向和冲突解决功能；用于测量参照能力（即快速命名非言语信息的能力）；用于测量内隐动机力量、成就和亲和的能力；以及与内容匹配的个人目标清单。此外，他们提供了唾液样本，用于检测 P 和皮质醇（C）。较高的 P 水平与警觉和定向的半球间相关性降低有关，但与冲突解决表现的相关性更高。较高的 P 还与半球间转移时间延长、内隐动机与明确目标承诺之间的一致性降低有关，并且在控制 C 后，与参照能力降低有关。这些结果表明：（a）P 与注意力功能在半球间的相关性程度有关，尽管对于更靠后的功能（警觉和定向：解耦）与更靠前的功能（冲突解决：耦合）的方向不同；（b）高 P 与认知系统之间功能一致性降低的其他指标有关（半球间转移时间延长，参照能力降低）；（c）高 P 还与内隐和外显动机系统之间的低一致性有关。
