The relationships between androgens and novelty seeking in healthy Japanese men

Effects of Temperamental Characteristics on Depression-Anxiety Levels and the Quality of Life in Infertile Women

Objective

It is known that the risk of anxiety disorders and depression in infertile women increases and their quality of life deteriorates. Temperamental characteristics are considered as predictors of mood disorders. The aim of this study was to investigate temperamental characteristics in infertile women and their effects on depression and anxiety levels, and the quality of life, and to reveal the differences and level of relationship compared to healthy women.

Method

Fourty-four female patients with primary infertility and 30 healthy female controls were included in this study. Temperamental characteristics of the participants were assessed with Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris and San Diego-Autoquestionnaire version (TEMPS-A). Depression and anxiety severity were evaluated with Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). To evaluate the quality of life, Short Form 36 (SF-36) health survey questionnaire was also applied.

Results

Hyperthymic temperament scores were higher in infertile women than the control group (p=0.001). BDI scores were positively correlated with depressive and cyclothymic temperament scores, and BAI scores were positively correlated with depressive and anxious temperament scores. A negative correlation was found between hyperthymic temperament and BAI and BDI scores. Hyperthymic temperament scores were positively correlated with both physical and mental subdimension scores of the quality of life scale.

Conclusion

In this study, hyperthymic temperament in infertile women was shown to be protective against anxiety and depression and it also improves the quality of life. Additional studies are needed to clarify the relationship between hyperthymic temperament and ovarian hormones or other biological parameters.

Sexual motivation: problem solved and new problems introduced

Background During the past 50 years, motivational studies have evolved from the logical inference of logically required "intervening variables" to explain behavioral change, to electrophysiological and molecular analyses of the mechanisms causing such changes. Aim The purpose of this review article is two-fold: first to describe the logic of sexual motivation in a way that applies to laboratory animals as well as humans, and the second is to address some of the problems of sexual motivation experienced by men. Results When problems of motivational mechanisms are stripped down to their essentials, as performed in the laboratory animal models and are available for reductionistic studies, then the problems can be solved with certainty, as illustrated in the first part of this review. However, with respect to human sexual motivation, the various determinants which include so many behavioral routes and so many brain states come into play, that definite conclusions are harder to come by, as illustrated in the second part of this review. Conclusions This review highlights a number of key questions that merit further investigation. These include (a) What mechanisms do cultural and experiential influences interact with androgenic hormone influences on human sexual motivation? (b) How would epigenetic effects in the human brain related to changes in motivation be investigated? (c) What are the effects of unpredictable traumatic and stressful human experiences on sexual motivation; (d) How such mechanisms are activated upon unpredictable traumatic and stressful insults? (e) What are the outstanding differences between sexual motivational drive and motivations driven by homeostatic systems such as hunger and thirst?

Non-overlapping and Inverse Associations Between the Sexes in Structural Brain-Trait Associations

Personality reflects the set of psychological traits and mechanisms characteristic for an individual. The brain-trait association between personality and gray matter volume (GMv) has been well studied. However, a recent study has shown that brain structure-personality relationships are highly dependent on sex. In addition, the present study investigates the role of sex on the association between temperaments and regional GMv. Sixty-six participants (33 male) completed the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) and underwent structural magnetic resonance brain imaging. Mann-Whitney U tests showed a significant higher score on Novelty Seeking (NS) and Reward Dependence (RD) for females, but no significant group effects were found for Harm Avoidance (HA) and Persistence (P) score. Full factor model analyses were performed to investigate sex-temperament interaction effects on GMv. This revealed increased GMv for females in the superior temporal gyrus when linked to NS, middle temporal gyrus for HA, and the insula for RD. Males displayed increased GMv compared to females relating to P in the posterior cingulate gyrus, the medial superior frontal gyrus, and the middle cingulate gyrus, compared to females. Multiple regression analysis showed clear differences between the brain regions that correlate with female subjects and the brain correlates that correlate with male subjects. No overlap was observed between sex-specific brain-trait associations. These results increase the knowledge of the role of sex on the structural neurobiology of personality and indicate that sex differences reflect structural differences observed in the normal brain. Furthermore, sex hormones seem an important underlying factor for the found sex differences in brain-trait associations. The present study indicates an important role for sex in these brain structure-personality relationships, and implies that sex should not just be added as a covariate of no interest.

Dehydroepiandrosterone and Dehydroepiandrosterone-Sulfate and Emotional Processing

Steroid hormones are important regulators of brain development, physiological function, and behavior. Among them, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate (DHEAS) also do modulate emotional processing and may have mood enhancement effects. This chapter reviews the studies that bear relation to DHEA and DHEAS [DHEA(S)] and brain emotional processing and behavior. A brief introduction to the mechanisms of action and variations of DHEA(S) levels throughout life has also been forward in this chapter. Higher DHEA(S) levels may reduce activity in brain regions involved in the generation of negative emotions and modulate activity in regions involved in regulatory processes. At the electrophysiological level, higher DHEA-to-cortisol and DHEAS-to-DHEA ratios were related to shorter P300 latencies and shorter P300 amplitudes during the processing of negative stimuli, suggesting less interference of negative stimuli with the task and less processing of the negative information, which in turn may suggest a protective mechanism against negative information overload. Present knowledge indicates that DHEA(S) may play a role in cortical development and plasticity, protecting against negative affect and depression, and at the same time enhancing attention and overall working memory, possibly at the cost of a reduction in emotional processing, emotional memory, and social understanding.

Developmental differences in reward sensitivity and sensation seeking in adolescence: Testing sex-specific associations with gonadal hormones and pubertal development

Sensation seeking has been found to increase, on average, from childhood to adolescence. Developmental scientists have hypothesized that this change could be driven by the rise of gonadal hormones at puberty, which affect reward-related processing in the brain. In a large, age-heterogeneous, population-based sample of adolescents and young adults (N = 810; ages 13-20 years), we tested for sex-specific associations between age, self-reported pubertal development, gonadal hormones (estradiol and testosterone) as measured in saliva, reward sensitivity as measured by a multivariate battery of in-laboratory tasks (including the Iowa gambling task, balloon analogue risk task, and stoplight task), and self-reported sensation seeking. Reward sensitivity was more strongly associated with sensation seeking in males than females. For both males and females, reward sensitivity was unrelated to age but was higher among those who reported more advanced pubertal development. There were significant sex differences in the effects of self-reported pubertal development on sensation seeking, with a positive association evident in males but a negative association in females. Moreover, gonadal hormones also showed diverging associations with sensation seeking-positive with testosterone but negative with estradiol. Overall, the results indicate that sensation seeking among adolescents and young adults depends on a complex constellation of developmental influences that operate via sex-specific mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record

The evaluation of temperament and quality of life in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome

AIMS

To evaluate the temperament and quality of life (QoL) of patients with PCOS.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Fifty-three adult patients with PCOS and 38 healthy controls were enrolled in the study. Demographic characteristics including age, education and body mass index (BMI) were recorded. Affective temperaments were assessed by the temperament evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris and San Diego-autoquestionnaire version (TEMPS-A) scale. The general health-related quality of life (HRQoL) instrument used in this study was short Form 36. Hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) were also performed.

RESULTS

The patients with PCOS had significantly higher rates of depressive, anxious and hyperthymic scores compared to controls. The PCOS patients had significantly lower mean SF-36 health summary scores.

CONCLUSIONS

TEMPS-A seems to be an easy and reliable test to evaluate temperament in PCOS patients.