Testosterone & cortisol may not be the villains that popular media portrays them to be, & instead are associated with better response inhibition & less risky decision-making, respectively

Three-month cumulative exposure to testosterone and cortisol predicts distinct effects on response inhibition and risky decision-making in adolescents. Grant S.Shields, Susannah L. Ivory, Eva H. Telzer. Psychoneuroendocrinology, August 20 2019, 104412. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.104412

Highlights
•    We examined relations between hair hormones, response inhibition, and risky decision-making
•    Hair testosterone selectively predicted better response inhibition
•    Hair cortisol selectively predicted less risky decision-making
•    These associations held when controlling for the other hormone

Abstract: Prior studies have established that cortisol and testosterone play a role in impulsive behavior, but little is known about how cumulative exposure to these hormones over a recent period influences cognitive processes that help to regulate impulsive behavior. We addressed this gap in the present study by examining how hair concentrations of testosterone and cortisol related to response inhibition and risky decision-making in adolescents. Adolescents provided 3 cm of hair cut as close as possible to the scalp from a posterior vertex position—indexing three months of hair growth—and completed two behavioral tasks, one that measures response inhibition and the second that measures risky decision-making. We found that greater three-month cumulative exposure to testosterone predicted better response inhibition but was unassociated with risky decision-making, whereas greater three-month cumulative exposure to cortisol predicted less risky decision-making but was unassociated with response inhibition. These results suggest that testosterone and cortisol may be associated with unique cognitive processes underpinning impulsive behavior, providing further evidence for their roles in contributing to complex impulsive behaviors in adolescence.


Check also Paternal biobehavioral influence on the family: Preliminary data from the D.A.D.I.O. Project. Nikki J Clauss, Erin Harrington, Jennifer Byrd-Craven. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y