Cáceda Ricardo, Moskovciak Tori, Prendes-Alvarez Stefania, Wojas Justyna, Engel Anzhelika, Wilker Samantha H, Gamboa Jorge L, Stowe Zachary N
Psychiatric Research Institute, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas, United States of America.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2014 Sep 26;9(9):e108733. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0108733. eCollection 2014.
Prosocial behaviors are essential to the ability to relate to others. Women typically display greater prosocial behavior than men. The impact of depression on prosocial behaviors and how gender interacts with those effects are not fully understood. We explored the role of gender in the potential effects of depression on prosocial behavior.
We examined prosocial behaviors using a modified version of the Trust Game in a clinical population and community controls. Study participants were characterized on the severity of depression and anxiety, presence of suicidal ideation, history of childhood trauma, recent stressful life events, and impulsivity. We correlated behavioral outcomes with gender and clinical variables using analysis of variance and multiple regression analysis.
The 89 participants comprised four study groups: depressed women, depressed men, healthy women and healthy men (n = 16-36). Depressed men exhibited reciprocity more frequently than healthy men. Depression induced an inversion of the gender-specific pattern of self-centered behavior. Suicidal ideation was associated with increased reciprocity behavior in both genders, and enhancement of the effect of depression on gender-specific self-centered behavior.
Depression, particularly suicidal ideation, is associated with reversal of gender-specific patterns of prosocial behavior, suggesting abnormalities in sexual hormones regulation. This explanation is supported by known abnormalities in the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal and hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axes found in depression.
亲社会行为对于与他人建立关系的能力至关重要。女性通常比男性表现出更多的亲社会行为。抑郁症对亲社会行为的影响以及性别如何与这些影响相互作用尚未完全了解。我们探讨了性别在抑郁症对亲社会行为潜在影响中的作用。
我们在临床人群和社区对照组中使用信任游戏的修改版本来研究亲社会行为。研究参与者根据抑郁症和焦虑症的严重程度、自杀意念的存在、童年创伤史、近期压力性生活事件和冲动性进行特征描述。我们使用方差分析和多元回归分析将行为结果与性别和临床变量相关联。
89名参与者包括四个研究组：抑郁女性、抑郁男性、健康女性和健康男性（n = 16 - 36）。抑郁男性比健康男性更频繁地表现出互惠行为。抑郁症导致了以自我为中心行为的性别特定模式的反转。自杀意念与两性中互惠行为的增加相关，并增强了抑郁症对性别特定的以自我为中心行为的影响。
抑郁症，尤其是自杀意念，与亲社会行为的性别特定模式的反转有关，提示性激素调节异常。抑郁症中下丘脑 - 垂体 - 肾上腺轴和下丘脑 - 垂体 - 性腺轴的已知异常支持了这一解释。
