The marked increase in adolescent reward-seeking behavior has important implications for adaptive and maladaptive development. Reward-seeking is linked to increased testosterone and increased neural responses to reward cues. How acute testosterone changes modulate neural reward systems remains unclear. Based on previous work, adolescents, particularly males, showing an increase in endogenous testosterone reactivity were hypothesized to show increased neural response to reward in ventromedial prefrontal cortex, ventral striatum, and posterior cingulate cortex. Sixty-one healthy adolescents aged 10–13 (38 female, mean age = 12.01 [SD = 1.00]) completed a reward-cue processing task during fMRI. Saliva samples to be assayed for testosterone were collected immediately before and after scanning. Acute testosterone changes were not associated with variation in behavioral performance. Within ventromedial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices, increased acute testosterone change was associated with discrimination between rewarded and un-rewarded trials. Results suggest that increasing levels of testosterone may result in reduced attention to/salience of task irrelevant information. In contrast to previous studies that found a positive association between testosterone and neural response to reward, the reward information in the current paradigm was irrelevant to success in task performance. These results are consistent with theoretical conceptualization of testosterone’s role in reproduction, which involves a shift in salience to short-term relative to long-term goals. These data further emphasized the need to consider context in the study of hormones; specific behaviors will be up- or down-regulated by a hormone based on the fit of the behavior with the broader contextual goal being orchestrated by the hormone.

中文翻译：

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睾酮反应性与青春期早期对奖励的神经反应减弱有关


青少年寻求奖励行为的显着增加对适应性和适应不良的发展具有重要影响。寻求奖励与睾丸激素的增加和对奖励线索的神经反应的增加有关。睾酮的急性变化如何调节神经奖励系统仍不清楚。根据之前的研究，青少年，尤其是男性，内源性睾酮反应性增加，被假设为腹内侧前额叶皮层、腹侧纹状体和后扣带皮层对奖励的神经反应增加。 61 名 10-13 岁的健康青少年（38 名女性，平均年龄 = 12.01 [SD = 1.00]）在功能磁共振成像期间完成了奖励线索处理任务。在扫描之前和之后立即收集用于测定睾酮的唾液样本。睾酮的急性变化与行为表现的变化无关。在腹内侧前额叶和后扣带皮层中，急性睾酮变化的增加与奖励试验和无奖励试验之间的区分有关。结果表明，睾酮水平的增加可能会导致对任务无关信息的关注度/显着性降低。之前的研究发现睾酮和对奖励的神经反应之间存在正相关，与此相反，当前范式中的奖励信息与任务绩效的成功无关。这些结果与睾酮在生殖中作用的理论概念相一致，这涉及相对于长期目标的短期目标的显着性转变。 这些数据进一步强调了在激素研究中考虑背景的必要性；特定行为将被激素上调或下调，具体取决于行为与激素精心策划的更广泛背景目标的契合度。