1 Department of Psychology, Nipissing University.
2 Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna.
Psychol Sci. 2019 Apr;30(4):481-494. doi: 10.1177/0956797619826970. Epub 2019 Feb 21.
Little is known about the neurobiological pathways through which testosterone promotes aggression or about the people in whom this effect is observed. Using a psychopharmacogenetic approach, we found that testosterone increases aggression in men ( N = 308) with select personality profiles and that these effects are further enhanced among those with fewer cytosine-adenine-guanine (CAG) repeats in exon 1 of the androgen receptor (AR) gene, a polymorphism associated with increased AR efficiency. Testosterone's effects were rapid (~30 min after administration) and mediated, in part, by subjective reward associated with aggression. Testosterone thus appears to promote human aggression through an AR-related mechanism and to have stronger effects in men with the select personality profiles because it more strongly upregulates the subjective pleasure they derive from aggression. Given other evidence that testosterone regulates reward through dopaminergic pathways, and that the sensitivity of such pathways is enhanced among individuals with the personality profiles we identified, our findings may also implicate dopaminergic processes in testosterone's heterogeneous effects on aggression.
关于睾酮促进攻击的神经生物学途径知之甚少，也不清楚哪些人会出现这种效应。我们采用精神药理学遗传学方法发现，睾酮会增加具有特定人格特征的男性（N=308）的攻击性，而且这种效应在雄激素受体（AR）基因第一外显子中 CAG 重复次数较少（与 AR 效率增加相关的多态性）的个体中进一步增强。睾酮的作用迅速（给药后约 30 分钟），部分通过与攻击相关的主观奖励来介导。因此，睾酮似乎通过 AR 相关机制促进人类攻击，并且在具有特定人格特征的男性中具有更强的作用，因为它更强烈地增强了他们从攻击中获得的主观愉悦感。鉴于其他证据表明睾酮通过多巴胺能途径调节奖励，并且我们确定的人格特征个体中这些途径的敏感性增强，我们的发现也可能暗示多巴胺能过程参与了睾酮对攻击的异质作用。
