Taylor Marcus K, Hernández Lisa M, Kviatkovsky Shiloah A, Schoenherr Matthew R, Stone Michael S, Sargent Paul
a Biobehavioral Sciences Lab, Warfighter Performance Department , Naval Health Research Center , San Diego , CA , USA.
b College of Health and Human Services , Purdue University , West Lafayette , IN , USA.
Stress. 2017 May;20(3):258-264. doi: 10.1080/10253890.2017.1333594. Epub 2017 Jun 19.
We recently established daily, free-living profiles of the adrenal hormone cortisol, the (primarily adrenal) anabolic precursor dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and the (primarily gonadal) anabolic hormone testosterone in elite military men. A prevailing view is that adrenal and gonadal systems reciprocally modulate each other; however, recent paradigm shifts prompted the characterization of these systems as parallel, cooperative processes (i.e. the "positive coupling" hypothesis). In this study, we tested the positive coupling hypothesis in 57 elite military men by evaluating associations between adrenal and gonadal biomarkers across the day. Salivary DHEA was moderately and positively coupled with salivary cortisol, as was salivary testosterone. Anabolic processes (i.e. salivary DHEA and testosterone) were also positively and reliably coupled across the day. In multivariate models, salivary DHEA and cortisol combined to account for substantial variance in salivary testosterone concentrations across the day, but this was driven almost exclusively by DHEA. This may reflect choreographed adrenal release of DHEA with testicular and/or adrenal release of testosterone, systemic conversion of DHEA to testosterone, or both. DHEA and testosterone modestly and less robustly predicted cortisol concentrations; this was confined to the morning, and testosterone was the primary predictor. Altogether, top-down co-activation of adrenal and gonadal hormone secretion may complement bottom-up counter-regulatory functions to foster anabolic balance and neuronal survival; hence, the "yin and yang" of adrenal and gonadal systems. This may be an adaptive process that is amplified by stress, competition, and/or dominance hierarchy.
我们最近建立了精英军人肾上腺激素皮质醇、（主要为肾上腺来源的）合成代谢前体脱氢表雄酮（DHEA）和（主要为性腺来源的）合成代谢激素睾酮的每日自由生活状态下的特征图谱。一种普遍的观点认为肾上腺和性腺系统相互调节；然而，最近的范式转变促使将这些系统描述为平行、协同的过程（即“正耦合”假说）。在本研究中，我们通过评估一天中肾上腺和性腺生物标志物之间的关联，对57名精英军人进行了正耦合假说的测试。唾液DHEA与唾液皮质醇呈中度正相关，唾液睾酮也是如此。合成代谢过程（即唾液DHEA和睾酮）在一天中也呈正相关且具有可靠性。在多变量模型中，唾液DHEA和皮质醇共同解释了一天中唾液睾酮浓度的大量变异，但这几乎完全由DHEA驱动。这可能反映了肾上腺释放DHEA与睾丸和/或肾上腺释放睾酮的协同作用、DHEA向睾酮的全身转化，或两者皆有。DHEA和睾酮对皮质醇浓度的预测作用较弱且不太稳定；这种情况仅限于早晨，且睾酮是主要预测因子。总之，肾上腺和性腺激素分泌的自上而下的共同激活可能补充自下而上的反调节功能，以促进合成代谢平衡和神经元存活；因此，肾上腺和性腺系统的“阴阳”关系。这可能是一个由压力、竞争和/或优势等级放大的适应性过程。
