Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.
Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.
Stress. 2021 Nov;24(6):866-875. doi: 10.1080/10253890.2021.1891220. Epub 2021 Mar 12.
The cortisol response to social evaluative stress has been well characterized. However, data regarding changes in gonadal hormones after stress are still scarce and inconsistent. The majority of studies have focused on testosterone reactivity to stress in men, while estradiol responses or gonadal stress responses in women have hardly been investigated. Furthermore, it has not been evaluated whether sex hormone reactivity to stress differs between men and women and the relationship between cortisol and gonadal reactivity to stress is still unclear. To address these questions, we re-analyzed saliva samples collected from 37 men and 30 women in their luteal cycle phase before and repeatedly after social-evaluative stress. Both, testosterone and estradiol levels were assessed. In both men and women, testosterone was significantly reduced after stress. Testosterone levels were at their lowest after 20 minutes, but did not return to baseline until 35 minutes after stress. Across the whole sample, estradiol was significantly increased after stress with two separate peaks after 15 and 30 minutes. Follow-up analyses revealed that 41 participants actually responded with a decrease in estradiol levels to stress, with lowest levels after 20 min, while the remaining participants responded with an increase in estradiol levels. These gonadal stress responses appear to be largely independent of the cortisol response to stress. These results demonstrate that the endocrinological stress response is not restricted to the HPA axis and stress responsivity of gonadal hormones is not simply driven by cortisol. Accordingly, the stress responsivity of gonadal hormones and their association to psychological variables is an additional avenue to explore in both men and women.
对社会评价性压力下皮质醇反应的研究已经相当充分。然而，关于应激后性腺激素变化的数据仍然很少且不一致。大多数研究集中在男性对压力的睾丸激素反应上，而对女性的雌二醇反应或性腺应激反应几乎没有研究。此外，还没有评估男性和女性对压力的性激素反应是否存在差异，以及皮质醇和性腺对压力的反应之间的关系仍不清楚。为了解决这些问题，我们重新分析了 37 名男性和 30 名女性在黄体期之前和之后反复经历社会评价性压力时采集的唾液样本。同时评估了睾丸酮和雌二醇水平。在男性和女性中，睾丸酮在应激后明显下降。睾丸酮水平在 20 分钟后达到最低，但直到应激后 35 分钟才恢复到基线水平。在整个样本中，雌二醇在应激后明显增加，在 15 和 30 分钟后出现两个单独的峰值。进一步的分析表明，41 名参与者实际上对雌二醇水平的下降有反应，最低水平出现在 20 分钟后，而其余参与者对雌二醇水平的增加有反应。这些性腺应激反应似乎在很大程度上独立于皮质醇对压力的反应。这些结果表明，内分泌应激反应不仅局限于 HPA 轴，而性腺激素的应激反应也不仅仅由皮质醇驱动。因此，性腺激素的应激反应及其与心理变量的关系是男性和女性都需要进一步探索的途径。
