Kotov Daria A, Corpuz Randy
Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, United States.
Front Psychol. 2024 Feb 15;15:1348031. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1348031. eCollection 2024.
Male life history strategies are regulated by the neuroendocrine system. Testosterone (T) and cortisol regulate male behaviors including parenting and facilitate managing tradeoffs at key transitions in development such as first-time fatherhood. Both hormones demonstrate marked fluctuations in the postnatal period, and this presents an opportunity to investigate the role of T and cortisol in postpartum depressive symptoms-comparably less studied in fathers than in mothers in the evolutionary literature. Prior work on depressive symptoms has yet to integrate insights from the "dual hormone hypothesis (DHH)" which has focused on how T and cortisol to jointly regulate traits associated with dominance and status-seeking (i.e., mating effort) but has yet to be included in models of parenting effort. In this research, we use secondary data to investigate the relationship between DHH and traits ostensibly opposed to status seeking (i.e., depressive symptoms). First-time fathers ( = 193) provided morning saliva samples 10 months following parturition and reported on the presence of depressive symptoms (BDI-II). Responses were decomposed into three factors: cognitive, affective, and somatic. Using hybrid latent variable structural equation modeling, we did not find evidence that T predicted variability in cognitive, affective, or somatic depressive symptom factors. We found a null effect for cortisol as well. Finally, we could not find evidence that the DHH variable (T × cortisol interaction) predicted any variability in cognitive, affective, or somatic depressive symptoms. While we did not find evidence to support our hypotheses using a secondary data set, this study contributes to research on the neuroendocrinology of depression in fathers. Discussion focuses on the limitations of sample demographics, timing of saliva and self-report collection, and the lack of extant theory specific to paternal postpartum depression.
男性的生活史策略受神经内分泌系统调节。睾酮（T）和皮质醇调节包括养育行为在内的男性行为，并有助于在发育的关键转变期（如首次为人父）应对权衡取舍。这两种激素在产后阶段均表现出显著波动，这为研究T和皮质醇在产后抑郁症状中的作用提供了契机——在进化文献中，父亲的产后抑郁症状研究比母亲少得多。先前关于抑郁症状的研究尚未整合“双激素假说（DHH）”的见解，该假说专注于T和皮质醇如何共同调节与支配和追求地位（即交配努力）相关的特质，但尚未纳入养育努力模型。在本研究中，我们使用二手数据来研究DHH与表面上与追求地位相反的特质（即抑郁症状）之间的关系。首次为人父者（n = 193）在产后10个月提供了早晨的唾液样本，并报告了抑郁症状（BDI-II）的存在情况。回答被分解为三个因素：认知、情感和躯体。使用混合潜变量结构方程模型，我们没有发现证据表明T能预测认知、情感或躯体抑郁症状因素的变异性。我们也发现皮质醇没有影响。最后，我们没有发现证据表明DHH变量（T ×皮质醇相互作用）能预测认知、情感或躯体抑郁症状的任何变异性。虽然我们没有找到使用二手数据集支持我们假设 的证据，但本研究有助于父亲抑郁神经内分泌学的研究。讨论集中在样本人口统计学的局限性、唾液和自我报告收集的时间，以及缺乏针对父亲产后抑郁的现有理论。
