Research Center for Brain Function and Psychological Science, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China; Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Cognitive Science, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
Centre for Gambling Research at UBC, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2018 Apr;90:127-133. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.02.018. Epub 2018 Feb 21.
Testosterone has been implicated in the regulation of emotional responses and risky decision-making. However, the causal effect of testosterone upon emotional decision-making, especially in non-social settings, is still unclear. The present study investigated the role of testosterone in counterfactual thinking: regret is an intense negative emotion that arises from comparison of an obtained outcome from a decision against a better, non-obtained (i.e. counterfactual) alternative. Healthy male participants (n = 64) received a single-dose of 150 mg testosterone Androgel in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-participants design. At 180 min post-administration, participants performed the counterfactual thinking task. We applied a computational model derived from behavioral economic principles to uncover latent decision-making mechanisms that may be invisible in simple choice analyses. Our data showed that testosterone increased the ability to use anticipated regret to guide choice behavior, while reducing choice based on expected value. On affective ratings, testosterone increased sensitivity to both obtained and counterfactual outcomes. These findings provide evidence that testosterone causally modulates emotional decision-making, and highlight the role of testosterone in affective sensitivity.
睾酮与情绪反应和冒险决策的调节有关。然而，睾酮对情绪决策的因果影响，尤其是在非社会环境下，仍不清楚。本研究探讨了睾酮在反事实思维中的作用：后悔是一种强烈的负面情绪，它源于将决策获得的结果与更好的、未获得的（即反事实）替代结果进行比较。健康男性参与者（n=64）接受了单次 150mg 睾酮凝胶的双盲、安慰剂对照、组间设计。在给药后 180 分钟，参与者进行了反事实思维任务。我们应用了一种源自行为经济学原理的计算模型，以揭示可能在简单选择分析中不可见的潜在决策机制。我们的数据表明，睾酮增加了利用预期后悔来指导选择行为的能力，同时减少了基于预期价值的选择。在情感评分方面，睾酮增加了对获得结果和反事实结果的敏感性。这些发现提供了证据表明，睾酮可以因果调节情绪决策，并强调了睾酮在情感敏感性中的作用。
